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a letter about why we changed our donation process
From Our Blog
Running a business for 20 years teaches you that the small things matter just as much as the big ones. Sometimes the most meaningful improvements come from admitting where you've fallen short, and doing the work to make it right. This year, that had me rethinking how we handle donation requests. Donation requests? Pretty specific, right? And how on earth is that an issue that needs fixing? Well, donations at Charlie Pickles are a tiny part of our business, but they connect us with some of our most valued customers in really big ways. They connect us with the kids and families who support us after school and on weekends, who share our name with friends and family, and who bring people to visit us when they're in from out of town...... [Read More]
Guide to our new submission process for 2026
We are opening up submissions for school commitees to register their calendar of events. This helps us plan, and find ways to meaninfully support your school.
New Submission Protocol
New submission portal has been launched
Open Registration
As kids head back to school and school committees are formed, we'll send an email to all schools in our direct neighbourhood inviting them to register their known fundraising initiatives early. The sooner we know about an event, the sooner we can get it into our calendar. This is really important if you have fundraising that needs donations prior to Christmas. 1
School Regsitration Closes
No new forms will be accepted at this time and we invite you to revisit in the Spring to submit your calendar of events you'd like us to support.
Registration Re-Opens *
We will reopen our submission window early April. This only happens if we have any donations left, after we have allocated to the schools who submitted their calendar of events in the Fall.
No new Submissions
We will review our year of donations and see what may need tweaking to best support our community. Registration will open again in the Fall
All donation requests must be filled out through a school submission form available at the top of this page. Submissions are open August to the end of September and open again in March 2027 if we have left over budget or stock available for donations after fulfilling submissions received in September.
While we appreciate it may be easier to simply walk in and talk to us, we ask that you do not submit donation inquiries through our retail store. Our store is often busy, and requests submitted this way are prone to getting lost. All donation requests must be submitted electronically
Yes. 100%. We just need to know an approximate timetable of events. We know in September you're unlikely to know an April event date - but just knowing you have an April Fun Fair is all we need to know to plan accordingly.
If you submitted a donation request for your school through the form, during our open call for submissions, someone will 100% get back to you after we have closed the window of donations and, sat as a team to go through all submissions. Please do not e-mail to request for an update as it will regrettably go unanswered.
Yes. Absolutely. As long as your school is within Toronto, we will accept a donation request. Priority is given to schools closest to us, however, many of our customers are from across Toronto (not to mention Canada!) we try to support as best we can.
Any event that supports raising funds for the school and is a school recognized event.
Types of Donations
Surprise Gift Baskets
gift baskets are our go-to donation for silent auctions or events where kids are involved because we jam pack them with goodies for all ages
Candy Bags
Having a special event like a movie night? We've done candy grab bags before for local school movie nights
Gingey The Gingerbread Man
We lend our Gingerbread man costume to a school each season to use for fundraising at a school. Costume must be picked up and returned within the weekend.
Smaller Grab Bags
Filled with a lot of goodies our smaller grab bags are a fun way to get a lot of prizes to kids
