Joel Pedersen wanted to do his part to make Christmas special this year for families needing extra help because of COVID-19.
Pedersen is the founder of Fitness 2J2, a health and wellness company based in Saskatoon since 2011.
The vast majority of the company’s programing is with inner city youth. Pedersen says he was looking for a way to re-connect after the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to scale back.
“One of the things we wanted to do is give back to the community. I have a partnership with Canadian Tire Jump Start through a friend of mine who is the owner of the Weyburn Canadian Tire,” Pederson said.
“(Rob Williams) has a little plane and he said, ‘I’ll fill up the plane and bring it up to Saskatoon if you’ve got some people that could be (needing) some Christmas gifts.’ That’s how it started.”
It all came together quite fast, Pedersen recalled. There was no application process. Instead, he approached the Pleasant Hill Community Association who helped handpick 15 deserving families.
“Very surprised, very thankful. It was a team effort. It was about providing for some people in the community that may not otherwise have gotten some gifts for their kids.” “I think there’s a lot of people in the community that maybe are staying quiet about what they could really use.”
Pedersen delivered the gifts and food on December 19th.