The Untold FEEL GOOD STORY – A Christmas tale that was never told

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

“I was thinking that there was no way that COVID-19 was going to steal Christmas from my family, or from the Niagara region.”

It was Christmas time; the times for feel good stories, about people helping others. You would hear about soup kitchens feeding thousands of people, homeless people being fed by perfect strangers, toys being given to children. For some reason, 2020 was different.

Every time I turned on the television, I would hear about press meetings by our Premier that would keep everyone on high alert; what was going to be locked down? How long were we going to be on lockdown for? Were the kids going back to school? What new COVID-19 rules were being implemented? This went on and on, and on.

We watched the numbers rise; we were told that we would not see our families for Christmas or New Years. Day after day it was just more bad news.

It was why when I heard about a story that was happening in the Niagara region, I had to share it with the global community. I was curious; how did a story this big miss the mainstream airwaves. How did we not know about a special group of people, who put themselves out there for their community? I am exceptionally happy to present to you the wonderful staff at Shadow Auto Dealer, and how they put the spirit back into Christmas.

December 21st, 2020 – 11:49 am (Shadow Auto Facebook Post)
“Hi guys! The team at Shadow Auto is giving away the following items from now until Christmas Eve: Gifts for kids of all ages – Food items including: turkey/ham/stuffing/sauce/gravy
If you or anyone else you know needs help this Christmas, please come by and see us so we can help you. And we really do mean ANYTHING! Please share this so others can see!”

I jumped on a call with Kurt Wohler, the owner of Shadow Auto, Winner of CaraGurus 2018/2019, and a Readers Choice Awards. Shadow Auto is located at 520 Niagara Street, and was home to one the most extraordinary events of 2020.

Kurt started by sharing a little bit of his experience as a resident and business owner in the Niagara region.

“It is a lot easier out here. I feel like we are in a different world. We only got locked down on Christmas Eve. Until then, life felt pretty much the same as before.

It was business as usual, beside the fact that we received six visits from public health. I received fines for not wearing masks. They fined me under the same by-law for partying.”

“Can you believe it Simone,” he continued. “I couldn’t be next to my wife in the workplace, the same woman that I go home with every day. Does that make any sense?”

Of course it didn’t, but nowadays, what does? He let me know about how he was handling some of the other restrictions.

“Test drives were limited to 10 minutes and all four windows have to be down, even if it is -20 degrees outside.

I haven’t complied with a single thing. We had to hang signs, so we did, upside down on the bottom window.”

This of course rubbed enforcement the wrong way, so public health officers continued to visit the dealership. On one occasion, a Public Officer came in to ticket them all for not wearing masks. While he was serving citations, Kurt asked him a question,

“How is your sleep at night, knowing that you are fining people for trying to make a living?”

When Kurt told me what the Health Officer’s response was, I was a little shocked.
“I sleep very easily, I lie down and I close my eyes.”

I found that interesting, and a little sad. What exactly is happening in our world when people are able to be so callous about our current situation?

December 21st, 2020 – 3:28 PM (Shadow Auto Facebook Post)
“We have been holding up Niagara Street, but it is for a good cause. The turnout is amazing. We are trying to help as many families as possible.”

Kurt had been paying attention to what was happening on mainstream and social media, and he stumbled across a video of a man picking up Christmas pyjamas, but for some reason, he was not allowed to buy them. A sales associate had told the man that he could not purchase any Christmas items. Many of the items in the video were taped off. Kurt saw this and was deeply disturbed. This sat with him that night and the next day, he made a decision.

“I was stewing this up in my own mind. I arranged a nice lunch for my staff, and I said to them ‘Guys, we are going to do a great non-reset. We are not selling a single car. This is what we are doing.’

We started to buy presents. This was 100% personal. We were raiding stores, buying up all the turkeys we could find, toys, food, ham, potato, and stuffing.

Monday morning I asked our receptionist to start calling all the women’s shelters in the region. Within twenty minutes people started showing up in tears. They were overwhelmed with gratitude.

I had my wife put out a Facebook post, and within an hour, we had about 300 – 400 people lined up. I had two families bring toys that they wanted to contribute. Another nice gentleman came back with a loaf of bread for each of my staff members. I spent about $35,000 on toys and didn’t even think about it until after it was all done.”

With all of this happening in such a small town, you would think that the media would have caught wind of this. Staff members actually contacted the local media and nothing. No one showed up, except the police and of course, Public Health.

“They didn’t come the first day,” Kurt shares, “And I didn’t want to fight the system. It was hard to see families coming through the door. Most of them looked sad and upset. It was very heavy to see, and experience.

December 22nd, 2020 – 1:30 PM (Shadow Auto Facebook Post)”
If you don’t know where to go for great prices and for great customer service, I want you to go see Giant Tiger on Fonthill. They helped us with several trips to go get Christmas toys and make suggestions. One of the store attendants helped me push a few carts and helped me shop. The store owner/general manager Joe, ended up giving our team a total of 10% off all of the gifts due to the nature of our purchases. The cashiers were amazing to deal with. All in all a great service! Thank you for your help in keeping the kids’ belief in Santa intact!”

Kurt told me that they were a little more organized the second day. A lot of people were coming in so they had to slow it down. They wanted to ensure that they continued their mission, so that would mean that they would have to be more organized. They could tell that some people were uncomfortable with the idea of a group of people in one place not wearing masks, but they received the food, and gifts nevertheless.

On Wednesday, they had three visits from the police and Public Health: one was for storage of food, and two calls were for masks. The officers didn’t really bother them that much, and there is a video of Kurt thanking the cops for allowing them to do this without too much disruption

At one point in the interview, Kurt became emotional. He told the story of an event that truly had an impact on him.

“I had a young lady from St Catherine’s with nowhere to go, so I paid her first and last month’s rent. There were a lot of hugs and tears. She shared with me her story of abuse and how terrible it had been that year for herself and her four children. She left with a trunk and a half full of toys and food. The whole team had goosebumps. We wrote about six checks totalling up to $5,500.00. These checks were written for different expenses: hydro, food, you know basic necessities.”

The Shadow Auto team served just fewer than 1,000 families, and not a word about it on the news. I am curious.

There are still a lot of good people in the world, and we all know that one kind act leads to another kind act. Kurt’s hope is that the kindness his staff showed will lead to more acts of kindness.

December 24th, 2020 – 3:11 PM (Shadow Auto Facebook Post)
“Merry Christmas! We have wrapped things up now. A big thank you to all those who helped with: volunteers, monetary contributions, gifts, deliveries, and donations. We are humbled to help make Christmas a little easier on people who really needed it.”