Letter from Mayor Gillingham
BY SCOTT MOORE, REALTORI was extremely honoured to receive this letter from Mayor Scott Gillingham following our 8th Annual Food Drive for William Whyte School.
Many of you know that real estate is a seasonal business— very busy through the first half of the year, and pretty slow through November and December. It has been our honour to use our quieter season to support and uplift some of Winnipeg’s most vulnerable children for the last 8 years.
This has always been a pretty grassroots project, but this last year, we started getting some pretty serious media attention. I was really pleased to be interviewed by both the Winnipeg Free Press and by CBC Radio, hopeful that the extra exposure would draw extra donations, which worked. I can only assume that this is how we got on Mayor Gillingham’s radar, and I am so grateful that he would take the time to send such a thoughtful letter.
Running this Food Drive is a team effort, and I want to give a huge round of applause to my team, Reid Boles, Stephanie Baron, Phil Gear, David Van Benthem and Julia Allen for all their efforts, and I want to give a full-blown standing ovation to our Group Administrator, Manpinder Dhillon, who was the absolute workhorse behind this project, managing 20 different drop-off locations and coordinating all the promotion.
I also want to thank our partners in this year’s food drive- Altea Active, Autoland Cars, Barnhammer Brewing, Castle Mortgage Group, Century 21 Bachman & Associates, Cineplex, Discovery Homes Ltd, Investia Financial Services, Leopold’s Tavern, OrangeTheory Fitness, and The Rec Room. These local businesses provided twenty different drop-off spots in all areas of the city—they completely got onside with social media promotions, they ran contests to drive up donations, and even gave out gift cards for people who dropped off donations! We feel honoured to be a part of such a compassionate business community and thank each and every one of you for your contributions.
It takes a lot of people working together to make this project happen and I’m grateful to have such a solid team that is so committed to this school and these kids. Stay tuned- we’ll be back for our 9th year in November 2025!!