Cheer Board’s elves busy at work with warehouses packed to the brim

Christmas Cheer Board’s elves settled into their workshop for the first time in early October.

As head elf, Shawna Bell (also known as the executive director) showed her staff around one of two large warehouses that they would occupy. Some questioned whether she had overestimated how much space they would need to pack hampers — but Bell knew better.

“I jokingly say to a lot of folks that we need 32,000 square feet of space every year, and it’s not an overestimation of space,” Bell said.

The Cheer Board is operating out of a 19,000-square-foot warehouse at 1441 Main St. and an even bigger one at 133 Paramount Rd. (24,000 square feet) this winter.

Both are packed to the brim with food and toys.

Bell maintains that the Cheer Board’s workshop during peak season is something many need to see to truly understand. This year, an estimated 400,000 units of product arrived in anticipation of preparing hampers for 21,000 people for the holidays.

The bulk deliveries make up about 70 per cent of the product that will be included in hampers this month; the other 30 per cent will come by donation.

“There is the sheer magnitude of it, and nothing really hits you as hard as when you first walk in after things have all been received and you realize exactly what kind of space is required to do this work,” said Bell.

Some numbers to put the volume of stuff in perspective: 32,000 boxes of Jell-O, 30,000 cans of vegetables, 28,000 boxes of macaroni and cheese, 26,000 cases of tuna, 25,000 boxes of fruit juice, 16,000 jars of peanut butter and another 16,000 units of jam, 15,000 units of flour, 12,000 boxes of cereal and 18,000 toys.

In total, it’s over $900,000 of product.

Indeed, Santa’s sleigh has some competition.

“Year over year, when people come to drop off donations, or they come by to say hi, I always encourage (them to walk around), because when people see what’s going on behind the scenes here, it usually is quite a shock to the system for them,” Bell said.

The warehouse on Paramount Road is where food supplies are delivered, and where hampers are put together and will be sent back out for delivery later this month, while the Main Street location is where toys are sorted and wrapped, and where pick-up orders are fulfilled.

The Cheer Board’s warehouse manager, Rick Gill, oversees the product that comes into both warehouses and schedules when hampers are made.

It’s Gill’s 19th year with the Cheer Board, and while it can feel like organized chaos at times, he said this season has gone without a hitch, so far.

“We’re very transit the last six or seven years. We’ve been here, we’ve been there, we’ve been somewhere else, so every year lately has been a new experience on where we put the food, where we store the toys,” Gill said.

“To me, now, it doesn’t surprise me because I know what we order and I know that it’s just an enormous amount of food,” he added. “When the adults come in to help us pack, they’re just overwhelmed by the amount of food that we get in and the amount of hampers that we build, and just the whole process.”

Every spring, Bell surveys half a dozen local vendors to find out which options will best help the Cheer Board fulfill the Christmas wishes of families across the city for the upcoming season. This year, she settled on four of them, but to get there is a diligent process that requires the supplier to meet two criteria:

“It’s brand recognition, because we want to make sure we’re delivering to folks what they recognize on the shelves — there’s nothing off-brand coming to them. But also price — price has to be competitive and something we can wrap our heads around, because we are constrained by budget,” she said.

Bell explained that the last five years of rising prices have made it harder for the organization to help more Winnipeggers in need. To make matters worse, as costs continue to soar, new faces continue to walk through the door.

Both Bell and Gill assure they are strategic about the space they occupy each year, with some product stacked three or four pallets high. Every spot is temporary, too, as it won’t be long before everything is gone.

Staff arrived on Oct. 7 and will be out of both buildings by Jan. 10.

“It is only being stored for a month and a half before it’s heading out the door,” Bell said. “It’s the biggest expand-and-contract you’ve ever seen.”

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