Toronto Star staff and volunteers deliver the boxes and help offload them into Room 109. This is some of the staff in 2011 that acted as Santa’s elves.
Each year arrangements are made with The Toronto Star Santa Claus Fund Warehouse for MCC Toronto to receive delivery of approximately 1600 boxes in total – which go to needy kids in the Riverdale and Thorncliffe Park Drive areas of Toronto.
About 10 volunteers from Santa’s warehouse accompany the truck on its deliveries. The volunteer and helpful church staff hand-bomb all 1600 boxes up a short flight of stairs into Room 109.
This large delivery of boxes to MCC Toronto usually occurs the first thursday of December, but can often not arrive until the second week of December. The mid-week delivery allows The Clauses to digitally route the boxes in preparation for Saturday, which is sorting day. When each box is moved into its route for the delivery elves to pick up on Sunday of that week.
It takes about an hour to an hour and a half to hand-bomb the boxes into giant stacks by area.