An independent business in Blue River is showing some generosity after donating a hefty amount of clothing to the homeless.
Blue River Sledz, owned by Daniel Hardes, and his wife Cheri Ewen who helps out with the business, decided to send some surplus clothing from their shop to help those in need living in Kamloops, through their friend Kasey Quinn, who drove down to make the delivery.
“Blue River Sledz had a bunch of clothing like boots and jackets; they had it all in the community hall for quite a while and tried to donate it towards people in Blue River, but everybody (in town) pretty much had all the stuff they needed, so we figured we’d donate it towards the less fortunate in Kamloops,” said Quinn.
“We all go down when we can and grab stuff for each other, so Cheri asked if I could drop some stuff off and I said absolutely.”
Ewen added the original intent when they bought Blue River Sledz seven years ago was to have all the appropriate snowmobiling gear, including warm clothes, onsite for those who show up and don’t have winter gear.
She said the store hasn’t needed to use much of it in all that time and decided to pay it forward by giving it to people who could use it this winter.
“We have never had to use it, ever, and got tired of having it kicking around—we tried donating it to the community hall and it’s been sitting there for about a year with nobody doing anything with it, so we thought, well, let’s ship it off to Kamloops, there’s somebody there for sure that can use it,” said Ewen.
“It just happened to be this time of year and it’s kind of nice it happened during a real B.C. cold snap. And there are a lot of negative connotations toward snowmobilers, so we just want to point out there’s good along with the bad.
“We’re also a small self-owned business, still trying to pay it forward; a lot of small owned businesses don’t get recognized because they’re not big industries—we’re just pointing out the little guys are still looking out for those around who need it.”