A 9-year-old girl from Milton is making sure that local kids have a great Christmas!
Arissa Kahn and her family get involved in some sort of fundraising activity each year. In the past, they would do the work for their home country of Bangladesh. She told her father, Jaed Kahn, that she wanted to do something for Canada this year. When Arissa was too nervous to speak with us for an interview, Jaed stepped in. He says they bounced from idea to idea before settling on Toys for Tots.
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Luckily, Jaed works for Walmart and their team got behind Arissa in the cause. They walked around the store and shopped for toys over the span of four-hours. They ended up with $15,000 worth of items that are being donated to three local charities (Salvation Army, Toys for Tots, and Tiger Jeet Singh Foundation).
The fundraising tradition began when Arissa’s grandfather started doing it roughly 10-15 years ago. Jaed says that when his father died, he began taking over the annual tradition. When they were collecting the toys from the store, Arissa asked Jaed if they could do this every year. He thinks they’ll be helping out Milton residents more often moving forward.
Major Lynn Cummings with the Salvation Army is very appreciative of the work done by Arissa and the Khan family. She says that kids are able to tell when other children are in need.
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The toys donated to the Salvation Army will be taken back to headquarters, where they will then be evenly distributed to communities to help make the holidays a brighter time for families in need.
The toy donation event happened at the Walmart Superstore at 1280 Steeles Avenue East in Milton at the Crossroads Plaza on Friday, December 9th.
