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Community Matters: White Spot Richmond Centre continues festive supporting Richmond Hospital

Continuing a seasonal tradition that spans more than a decade, staff at White Spot Richmond Centre are eagerly getting ready to open the doors to the community on Christmas Day to help improve local health care.
Richmond News
white spot community matters
Veena Ganatra, owner (fifth from left) and the team of White Spot Richmond Centre opening the doors for the annual Christmas Charity Lunch and donating all proceeds to Richmond Hospital Foundation. Photo: Submitted

Continuing a seasonal tradition that spans more than a decade, staff at White Spot Richmond Centre are eagerly getting ready to open the doors to the community on Christmas Day to help improve local health care.

“I started accepting shifts for Christmas Day in November and they were all booked up within two days. We will have about 50 people working on that day,” says General Manager, Charlie Tsang.

This tradition of serving up legendary dishes on Christmas Day has been a staff-led initiative at White Spot Richmond Centre and the joy and enthusiasm that comes with serving patrons in a festive environment has even spread to employees from other White Spot restaurants.

“The last few years, I’ve had people from other White Spot locations reach out to ask me if they can come and help out on Christmas but I’ve always had to turn them down because we have too many people working!” says Charlie.

This spirit of wanting to volunteer and help out on Christmas Day is a large part of what makes the Richmond community such a special place to live and work.

“We spend the entire year welcoming and embracing the community into our restaurant and we feel that on Christmas Day, the entire community embraces us back. This is the one day in the year we get to do our part and give back to the community and there’s no better way than giving back to Richmond Hospital,” says Charlie.

Charlie, who has worked the Christmas Day shift at White Spot Richmond Centre for 11 years now, says he is inspired by the impact it will have on his staff, especially for some of his younger staff members.

“For me, working on Christmas Day is inspiring for the younger employees because not all of them have a chance to do something special for the community. It’s important to instill that culture of giving back to the community so that they will be encouraged to do it more in the future,” says Charlie.

White Spot Richmond Centre will be open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, December 25 with all net proceeds, including staff tips, being donated to Richmond Hospital Foundation. To date, the White Spot Christmas luncheon has raised over $140,000.