Windsor Goodfellows volunteers are demanding an explanation after being shooed away from the property of an east-end Walmart this week.
Volunteer Joan Charette says in past years, Goodfellows has been allowed to collect donations in front of the Walmart on Tecumseh Rd. E. near Lauzon Rd. She says the charity sent multiple emails and different types of communication to Walmart to ask for permission again, with "no reciprocation whatsoever."
Assuming this year would be no different, the group decided to collect donations outside the east-Windsor store as usual. According to Charette, the volunteers were asked to leave the store property because Walmart management said they never got proper notification. Charette says when the manager came out to ask the volunteers to leave "he seemed pretty severe and dramatic."
She says the organization will be losing a significant amount of money now that they are unable to collect donations in front of the store property.
"It raises about $3,000--that goes a long way to support families and Windsorites that support Walmart. It just seems like not a very good thing, because that's a lot of money," says Charette.
Goodfellows helps thousands of local families each year by providing holiday meals, gifts, food donations, school breakfasts, and shoes.
"This organization has been around since 1910. It's not a fly by night organization. They've helped so many families over the years, for Walmart to just say we have to leave the property this year...it's not very community-minded of them,"says Charette.
She says it is unfair for Walmart to make a charity, which they have supported in past years, lose money for no apparent reason.
"They're not asking Walmart for a financial contribution, employees to help out, or anything other than the front side-walk...that's all they're asking for," says Charette.
Charette adds that it would be nice if Walmart could chip in the fundraising dollars that Goodfellows lost due to being turned away from the property.