Trucker Charity Christmas Group

Brought to you by the editors of Truck News, Truck West & Fleet Executive

First of all I would like to thank Harry Rudolfs for allowing me the space here in his blog to write about a cause that is near and dear to my heart. So please bear with me as I am a fellow trucker, not a writer and this will be my first blogging experience.

My name is Greg Manchester and I have been a company driver for Purolator Inc. for the last 28 years and I am a co-worker of Harry’s. I navigate the Toronto-Montreal corridor every night with a set of B-Trains.

I am also a founding member of the Trucker Charity Christmas Group. I would like to ask you all to take a minute and read about our great group. It is a group that I am proud to be a member of, we are all volunteers and active drivers, owner-operator’s etc. in the trucking industry who come together each year to run this group.

Christmas is here once again and the Trucker Charity Christmas group is looking for your help, in helping us, help trucking families in need this year.

This is the 6th year that our group has been helping trucking families in need enjoy a merrier Christmas. Over the last 5yrs we have raised over $46,500 US and helped 78 families have a better Christmas.

This all started out with the dream of one man who had a few extra dollars to spare at Christmas, and wanted to help a family in need at Christmas. He approached a group he had grown to know on the trucking social media network http://www.letstruck.com/
and asked for some help from his fellow drivers on how he could share $500 with someone who was less fortunate that year. Well low and behold a few of us banded together and started the Christmas group.

For the first couple of years we just did Christmas funding and then when Arrow trucking went out of business and left many drivers stranded all over North America, we stepped up and helped get many of them home. That was the start of www.TruckerCharity.org

From the dream of one man we have come a long way and is a testament to the strength of the trucking community when it comes time to help out our own.

We have now started our 2013 Christmas Group Fundraising Drive and we are looking for nominations for trucking families in need as well as donations that will go directly to the families selected for assistance this year. Nominations for trucking families in need will be accepted until December 16th 2013 at 12 noon est. and the families selected will be notified the following Friday. This is open to both residents of Canada and the U.S.

We also have a fundraising store http://www.truckercharity.org/store.php where we are selling some great products that are relevant to our industry and have been donated to us free of charge, or at a substantially reduced cost and we pass these savings on to you and every penny goes directly to the Christmas fund.

This year we are trying to get companies to donate die cast replicas of their fleet so that we can sell them in our store. In this area everyone can help, just contact your company and inform them of our Christmas drive and see if they will donate one of their die cast replica’s to our store.

The items in our store will be changing daily so check back often. Of special interest to our Canadian drivers, OBAC (Owner-Operator’s Business Assoc. of Canada) has donated 10 one year memberships, and many other companies such as AirTabs, CubbyBuddy, Freedom Air Filters, OOIDA and also media personalities such as Kevin Rutherford on SiriusXM’s Trucking Business and Beyond, and Eric Harley of the Red Eye Radio Network have also been great supporters of our cause and you will find products that have been donated from them in our store.

Every little penny we can gather means so much and no donation is too small and every red cent you donate will go into the fund. Even if you can only afford a dollar it helps. We accept PayPal, credit cards, ComCheck and you can donate online through our website www.truckercharity.org/christmas-group or by phone at 1-888-523-0087

More information, the nomination form as well as testimonial’s from families we have helped in the last 5 years can also be found on our website.

Wishing you all A Very Merry Christmas