A gift from the heart
Diner gals donate tips for worthy cause

Paula White
Northern News Services

NNSL (Dec 23/98) - Staff at The Diner helped Santa out a few weeks ago after they donated their tips to buy toys and food for children for Christmas.

Diner manager Maureen Bernard said one of their regular customers -- a teacher from J.H. Sissons school - told them about some of her students who "just have to do without a lot of things in life."

"So we decided, us girls, instead of buying gifts for customers, because there's too many, we would make sure some little kids got some presents on Christmas morning."

Bernard explained that every year staff members buy Christmas gifts for some of their customers. But after hearing about the less fortunate students, they decided to donate some of their tip money, on behalf of the regular customers, to help buy Christmas goodies for the kids.

"It was a way for us to show appreciation for our regular customers and our new customers."

Bernard said some of the teachers then matched the donation made by the Diner staff.

"They had about $900 to go shopping with," she said. "They said each kid would get about four presents each."