Tree Tossers hope to pick up 1,000 trees, drop funds into Calgary charities

Two Calgary men hope to turn a cancelled city service into a small business that donates some of the funds to local charities.

Kevin Coan and Todd Bradley have a goal of picking up 1,000 Christmas trees from Calgary communities.

They're now charging $15 a pop for the service and demand has recently spiked for the Tree Tossers.

"The last couple of days our phones and emails have been vibrating with orders quite significantly," Coan told CBC News.

"We are happy with that."

The city of Calgary stopped picking up Christmas trees for recycling this year, opting to go with 16 drop-off locations instead.

And an idea was born.

"We have put these lumberjack characters together," Coan explained.

"We have got these knitted beards, which are two-fold. We have character with them and we also keep our faces warm in the 20 C or 30 Cwinds that blow through here, which is a lot of the reason why some people really want us to come and pick up their trees for them."

Funds raised will be split among the tree tossers, the Calgary Food Bank, a Calgary man with cancer hoping for a dream vacation and possibly a wildlife refuge northwest of Calgary.

"A gentleman by the name of KimDeGagne, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer,wants to go on a trip to Hawaii, which fortunately some other fineCalgarianshave anted up and paid for most of if not all of that trip. We are going to give him some spending cash for he and his wife," said Coan.

The Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation recentlyput out a call for treesto help create a natural habitat for animal patients as its hospital.

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"It really does help the animals, it provides them a natural area," AIWC executive director Holly Duvall told CBC News this week.

"So it naturalizes the habitat that they're already in and it provides them shelter from the weather, but also a good hiding spot as well."

Coan says he's currently working out the logistics for tree donations to the institute.

He says the 1,000-tree goal, which could go up if there's demand, is the money spot for maximum charitable donations.

"The real goal is to maximize what we give to charity," he said."The more we pick up in a certain area, then our costs-per-tree goes down and the amount we can give to charity increases."

Aside from the physical pickup, the business is completely web-based.

"We are doing it all online, plus our signs on our trailer,"Coansaid.

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"We are planning our routes. All the information that comes into us from the online order form goes directly into a mapping solution software and then gets pushed through to our Google Maps. That helps us schedule our pickups and we are going to try and get them all done by Jan. 14 or so."

The business is basically Coan, Bradley, two trucks and some volunteers on standby.

"Just go for it. Let's shoot for that 1,000 trees," he said."We will scale it up to deal with demand and we will make it happen. If we get 2,000, we will add a few more lumberjacks to the team and we will get those picked up."

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