Despite trading in their little orange collection boxes for in-school fundraising four years ago, the UNICEF Halloween collection continues on into its 54th year as strongly as ever.
Yesterday, and for the next two to three days, Unicef will be partnering up with the Calgary Fire Department who has allowed around 50 volunteers to use a northeast fire house to take part in the sorting, counting and rolling of the coins collected by Calgary children. Almost 30 Calgary firefighters have volunteered to pick up the money collected by the children.
“This is a great tradition, the fire department has been working with Unicef in this capacity for 44 years now,” said John Conley, a Unicef volunteer and retired Calgary firefighter.
Volunteers included off-duty and retired firefighters, Royal Bank employees, and Calgary Board of Education Retirees.
“For almost half a century Calgary’s fire fighters have been helping us teach global citizenship to Calgary students. It’s been an amazing partnership,” said Holly Davidson, Unicef’s regional director.
Last year Calgary schools raised $250,000 through the Trick or Treat for Unicef program with the whole of Canada raising $2.3 million said Davidson.
