With only two days left until Christmas, the Grinch is finally done delivering his ultimatum to local businesses.
That ultimatum was to gather a donation of either goods and supplies or cash for the Swift Current SPCA, or he would be back in 24 hours to steal the Christmas tree.
Over the last week, the Grinch, performed by Rogue Cruisers co-founding member Dustin Vipond, visited 17 local businesses that met his demands. Each of these local entities stepped up to the challenge and gathered a donation by the very next day.
"It was a pile of fun!" said Vipond. "It really did put the 'fun' in fundraiser."
In the end, four truckloads of goods along with a nice chunk of cash were gathered for the SPCA. Vipond says that by the end, he was starting to receive messages from other businesses that wondered why they weren't raided by him and Ashley Muhle, the fundraising manager at the Swift Current SPCA.
"Well, we really only had so many hours," said Vipond. "And we started really late [in the season]."
These donations will go a long way to helping the SPCA ensure their cats and dogs are well looked after over the holidays. Things like toys are just as important to pets on Christmas as they are to boys and girls, and the same goes for food and treats over the holidays.
These animals still need care over the break, and the folks at the SPCA will be keeping up their efforts to ensure they are warm, fed, and happy over Christmas and New Year's.
"It was unbelievable. Every day that truck was just filled right to the brim," said Vipond. "It's great this time of year because the SPCA kind of gets forgotten about [during the holidays], it seems."
Next year, Vipond hopes to once again partner with the SPCA on this idea, which he admits he came up with at the last minute.
"I came up with this crazy idea on Sunday night, at about 3 a.m.," said Vipond. "I pitched it to Ashley, and she said, yeah, let's run with it! So Monday we headed out and we hit the first four businesses on Monday."
With no specifics laid in stone as of yet, Vipond reckons that a key difference is not doing this the week before Christmas, and allowing for more time for groups to meet the demands. A short 24 hours for everyone to run to the store, and find donations, all while the last week of work and home life before Christmas is happening, is a little bit too Grinch-like.
Next time, Vipond wants to do this campaign earlier in the month and give local businesses more time to get involved if they want to.
"It's a brand new thing," said Vipond. "So it took a minute for some people to get their head wrapped around it, but once they could, people were really having fun with it and enjoying it."
The following businesses succefully avoided the Grinch stealing their Christmas trees by donating to the SPCA.
Stark and Marsh
Kruse Glass
Dufresne Furniture
Chinook School Division
Fusion
Innovation Federal Credit Union
EBT Chartered Accounts
NAPA
Gauvin Motors
Optical Image
Cypress Motors
Wheatland Machine
Canadian Tire
RE/MAX
Standard Motors
City of Swift Current
Bumper to Bumper
Mercator Financial
In response to Canada's Online News Act and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) removing access to local news from their platforms, Swift Current Online encourages you to get your news directly from your trusted source by bookmarking this page and downloading the Swift Current Online app.