From Belleville Intelligencer – link to source story

Alex Filipe  •  30 November 2021

Members from the Canadian Armed Forces were hard at work Tuesday morning getting ready to deliver special packages destined for remote northern communities. The partnership between the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is all for the Toys for the North campaign. Hundreds of toys sat on the tarmac of 8 Wing Trenton awaiting to be packaged and put onto planes for the initiative now going on for 11 years.

“We’ve been doing this for quite some time with the RCMP,” said 8 Wing Commander Col. Ryan Deming. “What we do is we leverage some of the training flights that we have to be able to support this great initiative by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to deliver toys to many desolate, isolated posts across the north. And it’s just a great initiative in my opinion.”

The Christmas campaign first began in 2010, and each year the project has made the holidays a little brighter by distributing more than $866,000 worth of toys to children in Northern communities. Most of the toys are donated by manufacturers themselves and will benefit close to 4000 children.

“The majority of all these toys today are donated by toy manufacturers through the Canadian Toy Association,” explained Corporal Robert Buller from the RCMP and Toys for the North coordinator. “Roughly about 4000 children will benefit from the Toys for the North initiative. There’s been more than $185,000 in Toys donated by the Canadian Toy Manufacturers Association just this year.”

The project also serves as an opportunity for pilots to fly in arctic conditions, but the payload is more akin to Santa’s sleigh than a crew of trainees. As it stands, two separate flights will head out of 8 Wing Trenton, one that will head to Iqaluit and Goose Bay and the other will head towards Thunder Bay.

“We’re a globally deployable force… we have to exercise that reach across the entirety of Canada and that includes the North,” said Col. Deming. “This gives our crews the opportunity to continue to be more familiar and proficient with flying Arctic operations.”

The Toys for the North initiative is one way multiple organizations can work together to really benefit and spread holiday joy to families in more remote northern communities. For Cpl. Buller the photos he and his team members receive back from the families they impact make the effort worthwhile.

“I know that this initiative is well received in all the communities,” said Cpl. Buller. “We get pictures back every year of smiling children during this time.”

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Source: https://canadianaviationnews.wordpress.com/2021/12/01/toys-for-the-north-takes-flight/