Fox and Sons selected the Animal Auxiliary Thrift Store as this year's winner of the Wrap a Van contest, and will also run last year's van for the North Okanagan Community Chaplaincy for another 12 months. (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

By Liam Verster

Rolling Billboards

Local charities supported through Wrap A Van campaign

Feb 16, 2023 | 12:50 PM

Two local charities will be getting extra exposure for the next 12 months.

Fox and Sons Plumbing, Heating and Electrical has announced the Animal Auxiliary Thrift Store as the winner of the Wrap A Van contest.

The charity’s name and logo has been added to one of Fox’s work vans.

The Fox work van wrapped with the Animal Auxiliary Thrift Store logo (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

“The largest benefit of this is that the van runs five days a week, eight to ten hours a day, running all over town and all over the valley and so the exposure of their name, their logo and everything is kind of a priceless thing, it’s a moving billboard,” Ted Fox, owner and operator of Fox Plumbing, Heating Electrical told Vernon Matters

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“On top of that, what we’re doing is, five per cent of the revenue that this van produces through the year — after the 12 months — we’re going to present that five per cent of the revenue directly to the auxiliary.”

Ted Fox with Gina Barzan and Dale Christie of the Animal Auxiliary Thrift Store next to the newly wrapped van. (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

The Animal Auxiliary Thrift Store provides support in the form of numerous initiative including animal disaster relief and assistance, helping cover pet bills, gifting food hampers for animals and for people, and supporting local seniors.

“This means a big deal.The money that’s generated through this van will go into the Disaster Relief Fund, so if there’s ever another disaster like we had a couple years ago, there’s going to be instant funds in that contingency, so it’s pretty spectacular,” Gina Barzan, Interior director for the Auxiliary, told Vernon Matters.

“The five per cent is going to make a huge difference! We get excited when somebody donates $500 and we can go to the pet store and and buy $500 worth of cat food.”

She added the promotional side of the campaign is also going to be very beneficial for the charity.

“That’s what I’m excited about. I don’t know if anybody knows about advertisement but just to put something in the newspapers is hundreds of dollars to run it a week,” Barzan said.

“This is going to run all year long so people are going to know that we’re here to help and it’s going to be an even more amazing year.”

The Animal Auxiliary Thrift Store, the first of its kind in Canada, has moved from its spot behind Diner on 6 off Highway 6 to a new location at 3100 29th Ave. The store is used to generate funds that supports its numerous initiatives, and accepts donations of clothing and household items to be sold, as well as food, both for humans and for animals, that is used to stock the various hampers.

The Auxiliary was started by the Horse Protection Society of B.C., which also has its logo displayed on the van.

The charity was selected as the Wrap A Van winner through a 16-round community voting process, which Fox said saw “hundreds of thousands” of votes cast.

“Last year, we ended up having a total of 48,000 votes cast, which was a lot of votes, and this year I know that in one round of it we ended up hitting close to 70,000 votes,” said Fox.

Additionally, the van wrapped last year for the North Okanagan Community Chaplaincy (NOCC) will be running for another 12 months.

“The main reason [we brought it back] is because we could. It was so well received last year that we wanted to, if we could, run both,” Fox stated.

“It started though with, after last year’s win, the van broke down. It suffered an ignition failure, and through the COVID supply chain issues that we’re all experiencing the mechanic was unable to get the parts for about 10 months.”

Fox added they were still able to make a donation to the chaplaincy of $3,500 this year, using revenue from a separate van to calculate how much to give. He said while the charity did get its funds, it did not get the exposure, so he wanted to run it again this year.

Chaplain Chuck Harper with Fox representatives and the wrapped van (Liam Verster photo)

The money donated to the chaplaincy is going to help its work to support local people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

“Most of [the funds] will go to our food costs, and then I’m trying to hire a staff person so that will help with getting that ball rolling,” Chaplain Chuck Harper of the NOCC told Vernon Matters, adding having the van operational again for a full year this time is exciting.

“I had a lot of people asking me where the van was at first [last year], but then when the van was back on the road I had four or five people say ‘Wow! we saw the van.’ I saw it three times in about a week and it was kind of cool to see our logo on the back of a van going through traffic. It’s pretty awesome.”

The runner’s up for this year’s contest were the Halina Activity Centre, P.A.D.S. Dogs, and the Shuswap Paws Rescue Society. These charities are each receiving a $500 donation from Fox as well.