What seemed like a routine donation of items to a local animal shelter’s thrift store turned out to be associated with a high-profile internet star.
The Upper Credit Humane Society (UCHS) received boxes of clothing donations at its Georgetown thrift store that turned out to be from MrBeast’s upcoming TV show Beast Games, which was recently filming in the Toronto area.
MrBeast is the online alias of Jimmy Donaldson, who's known for his high-production value videos with elaborate challenges, lucrative giveaways and charitable donations. With over 320 million subscribers, his channel has the most subscribers on YouTube.
“We’re thrilled about it,” said Susan Thomsen, UCHS chair. “Who knows where it may lead? The more it brings awareness to the shelter and brings in some awareness from people who otherwise wouldn’t be aware of UCHS and even the fact that we have a thrift store, that provides us with lots of money towards running the shelter.”
The UCHS and the thrift store volunteers initially weren't aware where the donations came from.
Thomsen explained on either Oct. 25 or Oct. 26, someone from the film studio working on the show brought in boxes of donations of all new sweatshirts, boots and men’s briefs to the UCHS thrift store in Georgetown.
“We received an email on Monday saying donations were made of these boxed items, we need to receive a thank you letter on UCHS letterhead basically thanking the MrBeast show for their donation,” Thomsen said. “It was only then that the rest of us sort of clued in, oh this is like MrBeast, this is huge.”
Thomsen said donations of goods are the equivalent of financial donations because the thrift store is run totally by volunteers, so all proceeds go back to the shelter to support animals.
She wondered if this could be MrBeast testing the waters to show up with a bigger donation in the future.
“I did send a nice thank you letter and said, ‘We would be more than happy for MrBeast to come on a tour of the shelter’ and something to the effect of ‘MrBeast could help all of our four-legged beasts,’” she said.
The UCHS is currently fundraising to expand their capacity, possibly with a new building at their current location at the corner of Trafalgar Road and Wellington Road 124.
