Surrey Comfort Inn's Ismael Gatehalian, (from left), Angela Su, Evelyn Yadao and Roop Kooner deliver a busload of toys and clothes for the Surrey Christmas Bureau on Tuesday.
Photograph by: JACOB ZINN , Surrey NOW
Once again, the Surrey Comfort Inn gave a busload of toys, clothing and other donations to the Surrey Christmas Bureau following its second annual Stuff the Bus event over the weekend.
Hotel employees gathered hundreds of donations over Friday and Saturday - enough to fill a bus donated by West Wagon Tours, and then some.
"There's people still calling us saying, 'Listen, we can't make it now, but we'll come back and drop it off,'" said general manager Roop Kooner. "Drop it off and we'll take care of it from there."
Comfort Inn Surrey started the Stuff the Bus event last year as a way to give back to the community during the holiday season.
"When the economy changed, you heard a lot of news about people that were struggling and having a hard time, and we thought, What can we do? How can we help?" said Kooner.
"Individually, it's always difficult, but as a team, it makes it so much easier to go bigger. We said, 'You know what? Let's get a bus and see what happens.'"
Within six hours of gathering donations, the bus was full with stuffed animals, board games and even a brand new bike.
"People were giving cash donations, too," he said. "We raised almost $1,000 in cash on top of all this. People do care and people really do want to come out and help."
