“Santa! Santa!”
The patience of children waiting to see Santa Claus is legendary – but parents and grandparents were every bit as patient as they waited for the Coca-Cola Canada Bottling Limited Holiday Truck, driven by Santa himself, to come through Innisfil on Tuesday night.
There were stops at John’s no frills, where the line-ups were long – at the Alcona Sobeys, where kids made snowmen and tossed snowballs while they waited – and at Foodland in Stroud, which served up coffee and candy canes to the waiting crowd.
This was the first year for the cross-country Holiday Truck Tour, organized by Coca-Cola Canada Bottling in partnership with Canadian-led The GenWell Project.
The goal, as the decorated semi-trailer makes its way through more than 100 communities, is to deliver the “magic” of Christmas, and a message of togetherness.
“There has never been a greater need for human connection and interaction than right now,” said Pete Bombaci, founder of The GenWell Project. “The issue of social isolation and loneliness was growing before the pandemic, but after nearly two years of various lockdowns and cancelled gatherings, it has magnified the issue for many Canadians."
“As Canada’s local bottler and a family-owned business, our mission is to deliver optimism and create better futures for our communities,” said CEO of Coca-Cola Canada Bottling, Todd Parsons. “The Holiday Tour Truck is designed to enable those special moments of togetherness that we’ve all been sorely missing.”
The excited calls of “Santa! Santa!” as kids posed in front of the truck and waved to Santa, and as their parents took selfies with the Holiday Truck, demonstrated that the tour delivered the promised ‘holiday magic’ to communities in Innisfil.
