Vending machine proceeds support charitable causes

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This article was published 30/09/2018 (2678 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former Brandonite is helping out different charities with his company Accessit Corp. — one vending machine at a time.

Tom Semeniuk, together with his partner Paul Shepperson, created vending machines to help the Missing Children Society of Canada, as well as breast cancer research.

There are approximately 50 machines in the Brandon area that help with Missing Children Society of Canada, an organization who he’s worked with since 2005, he said.

“They’re a very good charity, and they’re a small organization — I don’t like to get involved with big organizations because a lot of money goes to administration,” Semeniuk said.

Vending machines are sold to business owners, and they in turn forward a minimum donation to the charity every month. The donations average between $500 to $1,000 from each machine per year.

Pictures of missing children are placed on the top of the vending machines.

It’s a win-win situation for everybody, he said.

“The merchant gets good recognition from the public when they help support a charity, and a portion of the revenue goes to charity,” he said.

The vending machines are quite significant to their overall operation, said Craig Peterson, director of business development at Missing Children Society of Canada.

“Over 47,000 children were reported missing in Canada during 2017, and the partnership with Accessit Corp’s charity vending machine program is crucial to raising awareness and funds for our national charity,” he said. “Through donations raised, the society is continuing to reunite families with their missing children across Canada.”

So far, the vending machines that Semeniuk and Shepperson created have raised approximately $380,000 for the Missing Children Society of Canada.

“I think we’ve helped keep their doors open, they only have a few staff and they’re always looking for donations,” Semeniuk said.

The machines that help support the Missing Children Society of Canada are called Treasure Chest Vending Giveaway machines, and sell a variety of different toys.

Accessit Corp. has recently started a new project called Vending for Hope, which include vending machines that will help support breast cancer research. Although there aren’t any of these machines in the Westman area yet, the goal is to get them all over, he said.

“We really want to start promoting and raising as much money as we can.”

The machines will have a pink stand, and will sell support wear, such as bracelets, pendants and rings all with the pink ribbon on it.

“From those machines we get donations direct to us, then we send them to the facility we’re aligning ourselves with in each province,” he said.

All donations will stay in the province they’re made in.

In Manitoba, money from the Vending for Hope machines will go to Cancer Care Manitoba.

“We really want to build it up,” Semeniuk said. “We want to put lots of machines up all over.”

» mverge@brandonsun.com

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