Management at an east-end Walmart has left volunteers with Windsor's Goodfellows scratching their heads when they were asked to leave the property this week.
Volunteer Joan Charette tells AM800 News, the charity has been allowed to collect in front of the location on Tecumseh Rd. E. near Lauzon Rd. for years.
"They've been allowed in the past, but this year there had been a lot of communication between the Windsor chapter and Walmart Canada, and the individual store," she says. "There was no reciprocation; there was absolutely no contact back."
Charette says volunteers decided to just do what they had done every year, collect for Goodfellows in front of the east-Windsor store.
"Not being told no they decided to go and try. They're not asking Walmart to participate or give any kind of financial contribution, they're just volunteers standing in front of the store," says Charette. "They were asked to leave the property because they [Walmart] didn't get any official communication."
The organization — which has been almost entirely volunteer driven since 1910 — usually collects around $3,000 outside of the location, according to Charette.
Goodfellows gathers money that provides holiday meals, gifts, stock for food banks, school breakfasts, children with shoes and boots, for thousands of families that can't help themselves.
"It seems wrong that this money, that would have gone to families and Windsorites that support Walmart, that they wouldn't allow that," she says. "I understand things have to go through the proper channels, but there was no communication either way."
Charette's hopeful Walmart reconsiders its current position.
Walmart Canada's Senior Director of Corporate Affairs Alex Robinson has since reached out to AM800 News stating the entire situation was a misunderstanding.