For almost everyone else, Christmas comes on Monday, December 25th.  For the volunteers who work with the Stephen's Backpacks Society, Christmas comes this weekend with the distribution of backpacks to the agencies working with children from their warehouse in Calgary.  

This has been a difficult year for Executive Director Nancy McPhee with the death of her husband Jim earlier this year.  "I noticed a huge canyon missing in our program with my husband not beside me.  We were the dynamic duo team that could kind of pull this off and at the end of it he would say, 'yeah, next year we're gonna slow down a bit' and then he'd go 'what a ride.'" McPhee laughs.  "This year we thought we were going to slow down a bit and the numbers wouldn't be where they were last year but we have surpassed by about 30 percent anything we did last year."

McPhee says she's been bolstered by the love of the Airdrie community who have said, 'keep going, this is a great thing you're doing.  We know you're missing Jim but we're behind you.'

McPhee cites more than 500 volunteers working with them, corporate giving and foundations who have loved Stephen's story for the increase.  She also says their reputation and the fact they have no paid staff has helped.

"I think when you've been around for a long time, we're coming into our 11th year, you gain credibility.  One of the biggest pluses that we're hearing out there is you don't have any paid staff, you're volunteer driven and we really like that idea."

McPhee says knowing that the backpack program is bigger than any one person has also helped her go on without Jim's support.

"I believe Stephen's Backpacks has developed a heartbeat of it's own and that heartbeat is all the people that contribute to making it a success.  We took on seven new agencies this year and we just had a call from one more saying please, so we're going to help them as well."

Today (December 15th) a bus is picking up over 1,000 backpacks but the person who "dreamed big" for the start of Stephen's Backpacks, Stephen McPhee isn't on it.

"Unfortunately our Stephen is very sick today.  He caught a very bad influenza that broke him into hives so he wasn't able to go on the bus and meet all the kids and thank them.  I just feel really sad that poor Stephen is laying in bed saying, 'ok mom, as soon as I'm better I'll go around and thank the kids'."

Tomorrow and Sunday, the agencies that Stephen's Backpacks works with will come to the Calgary warehouse and volunteers will distribute nearly 4,500 backpacks for kids to them.  McPhee says the days are a highlight for their volunteers.

"It's lovely because the agencies come in and we have 30 or 40 volunteers that form a chain up to their vehicles and we hand these backpacks out to the different services.  The agencies get to come in and for five minutes tell our volunteers what kinds of kids are getting these.  I really like that because then you're truly partnering with the services.  It's not, you know, 'I'm providing you with a backpack but I don't want my volunteers to support you.'  We're trying to promote a real unity in the community."

McPhee hopes that one day they won't have to give out backpacks because there'll be no more children in need.

"For me, it just feels so great because, even with the passing of Jim, we were able to welcome seven more agencies and say, 'we can help put a smile on these kid's faces Christmas morning.  To me, that's what it's all about, that's what Christmas is all about.  It's not about the presents and the fancy trimmings and the fancy meals.  To me, the true spirit of Christmas is being able to say 'man there's a lot of kids smiling this morning because we went the extra mile, even though we were feeling sad and a great loss, we went the extra mile.'  Jim's legacy lives on." 

Questions, comments or story ideas? Email us at news@discoverairdrie.com