Les Nemish from the Klassic Kruisers Kar Klub presents their donation of toys and $500 to Major Ed Dean with the Salvation Army. (paNOW Staff/Nick Nielsen)

By Nick Nielsen

Giving Season Begins

Klassic Kruisers help Salvation Army toy drive as Christmas rush begins

Nov 26, 2025 | 5:20 PM

With well over 300 kids registered online alone to receive toys from the Salvation Army, the busy season is officially here for those trying to make sure each and every kid wakes up to a gift to unwrap at Christmas time. Add in the phone in registrations as well as the ones in person, the Salvation Army helped over 700 families in Prince Albert last year, and they’re expecting similar numbers this year.

That’s why Wednesday’s donation from the Klassic Kruisers Kar Klub is so important. Along with a $500 donation that Salvation Army will use to go buy toys, the car club dropped off toys collected from their annual Christmas party to drop off to the folks at Salvation Army.

According to their president Les Nemish, the Salvation Army has been a important cause to the Klassic Kruisers for quite some time.

“We’ve been doing the kettles for the Salvation Army for at least 10 years. The Klassic Kruisers are a family-orientated car club, right? And we’ve done the toys for approximately 5 or six years now. We have our Christmas party, we ask whoever attends, to bring an unwrapped gift, and this is what we bring and donate.”

For the folks at Salvation Army, donations like this one mean a lot. Major Ed Dean with the Salvation Army knows that they will have a lot of families to support by the end of the year, and he’s hoping more people follow the example of the Klassic Kruisers.

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“That’s a wonderful way to kick off the season. We will serve quite a number of families this year, as a matter of fact, the calls are still coming in to register their children for toys, and so we have done online registrations, phone registrations, in-person registrations, and then there’s been some agencies that have called and ‘said, look, we’ve got a group of people, can we get them in?’ Things have been a challenge and we need some help. That’s who the Salvation Army is. We don’t want to see any child left behind at Christmas time.”

Registrations for the Salvation Army’s gift program are still being accepted up until the end of December 1 (registration information provided at the end of the story), although they understand that emergencies happen and some registrations will likely come in later.

If you walk into the Salvation Army and see the toy store now, you may think the shelves are full and they have what they need. They try and provide a large and a small toy for each kid, and they give the parents of those kids the chance to pick out the toys that would best suit their children.

As a result, the toy shelves empty quickly.

“This looks like we may have a few things, but by the time you get 300 children through, and it’s over that now. You get a big toy, a little toy, this here disappears real quick. If we put everything out, the one family will come and take all of the Lego if you allowed it. So there’s controls on it, so that every family gets the same opportunity. Last year we provided for 761 children, so this year, I mean, it could be the same.”

This year, the Salvation Army is providing gifts for kids aged 13 years old and younger, with exceptions made for families that have two kids and one of them happens to be older than 13. Even though the shelves are still quite full, they are sitting low on gifts for kids aged 10-13, and for children under three years old.

“We think of just toys, but sometimes those essential items that a family would need can be some of the things that we use, diapers and shampoos, stuff like that. If we happen to have it, we will definitely use it and pass it on to these families as well.”

If you’d like to make a donation towards the Salvation Army for their Christmas toy drive, you can contact them at (306) 763-6078 or by email at princealbertcc.info@salvationarmy.ca.

If you’d like to register your family for toy donations, online registrations have now closed, but people can still register over the phone and in person at their location at 900 Central Avenue in Prince Albert.