Thursday, December 5, 2019
VOLUME 2 I ISSUE 23
MERIDIANSOURCE.CA
Young Santa buys and gifts tree GEOFF LEE
WRITER
.................................. Tyler Pierce, a Grade 5 student at Rendell Park Elementary School, and Santa Claus have a lot in common. They both want to bring tidings of comfort and joy to kids and families at Christmas in the spirit of giving. Ten-year-old Tyler bought an artificial Christmas tree with money he earned over a year from farm chores, and donated it to a family that needed it last week. “I bought it with my debit card,” he said in a soft-spoken voice during a media scrum at the school on Tuesday. “I’ve done it since Grade 2 and I’m a really kind kid—I try to help people out.” The tree came with a set of red, white and green ornaments and a tree-topping star. School principal Sheldon Gallagher called it pretty extraordinary. “Tyler is a pretty special young man and we really appreciate his compassion and his
kindness and generosity,” he said. “It’s great to see young people with those types of qualities.” It was also an emotional moment for Tyler’s mom, Amy, to see her son talk publicly about his generous gift. “I’m so incredibly proud of him. He bought the tree after last Christmas. It’s been sitting our garage,” she said. She says Tyler got the idea to buy someone a tree during a bedtime talk a few years ago about helping needy kids at Christmas whose parents couldn’t afford a tree. “He was super concerned about Santa knowing where to leave the presents,” said Amy. She says Tyler wanted to know how Santa knows where to bring presents if there is no tree. “He decided he would like to buy a tree for somebody, so that just kind o f started fro m there. He’s a good little saver, so he’s got money in his account.”
Tyler says he saved the money for the tree by helping his grandma and grandpa on the farm. “I helped with the Bobcat work,” he said. “Sometimes I get $20, sometimes I get $10 and sometimes I get nothing, so it took about a year.” Gallagher says the school put out an invitation on Facebook for a family in need to contact the school if this were something that would help to complete their holiday season. They had three families to choose from who requested a tree. “In the end, we had to choose one, so we randomly choose one just so it was as fair as we could,” he said. “They contacted us through Facebook messenger and I had another family that called us directly.” He said the mother who picked up the tree said her family was excited about having a tree.
“She had two young ones that wouldn’t have had a tree otherwise, so she was teary-eyed and very grateful for the generosity of Tyler,” he said. Gallagher says it was all Tyler’s idea and his money he used to go shopping and he found a good deal for a tree. “That’s pretty cool to see that kind of drive from within. I am very proud of Tyler,” he said. Gallagher entertained the idea the donation could snowball into something bigger next year. “We haven’t
looked at it in terms of a large-scale type of production, but if the ne e d s ar e o u t t h e r e ,
that would be some thing that we would be sure to look at doing,” he said. The tree gift follows a successful Christmas food drive by the Rendell Park SCC Parent Council that Gallagher calls massive. “We collected a huge amount of food and then we gave a bunch to The Olive Tree and then we are also going to disperse amongst our (student) families as well,” he said. Next week, the school has a Christmas choir and a band concert.
Grade 5 Rendell Park Elementary School student Tyler Pierce saved his own money from doing farm chores for his grandparents to buy and donate an artificial Christmas tree for a needy family. Geoff Lee Meridian Source