A lump of code: Yukon's Share the Spirit campaign gets some high-tech help

Yukon's Share the Spirit campaign has a high-tech elf watching out for all its needs this year.

The hope is that no one gets left off Santa's list, so computer coder — and Christmas lover — Andy Reid came up with a way to make Santa's deliveries more efficient, and private.

Reid donated his time to build a secure data management system, tailored for the annual Christmas hamper program. The software helps volunteers with Share the Spirit complete tasks more efficiently, with fewer steps — saving volunteers time.

"What it is trying to do is free up the resources of the administrators of the program, to deal with more pressing issues rather than data management," Reid said, explaining the system.

"It takes in data, arranges it, keeps it up to date ... It maps it out for delivery. It organizes it. And allows third parties to either request sponsorship or to refer families."

He says there are names of nearly 600 children now in the system, from around the Yukon. Reid says the software helps eliminate mistakes so no child is left out.

"Santa Claus can probably use a system like this — you get a nice list of who's deserving of gifts this year, and I double-check it for him," Reid said.

"You are not going to be on the delivery day realizing you are short presents, or that you don't know where someone is, or that someone is in the system twice."

Nicholas O'Carroll is with the Whitehorse Firefighters Charitable Society, and is director ("lead elf") of the hamper program. He says the new data management system helps ensure anonymity for the people in need who receive hampers.

"It's not something that people are bragging about necessarily, right? There are a lot of folks who are temporarily on this list, and some folks who are chronically fighting against a lot of issues, not be in this position," O'Carroll said.

"And so what we definitely don't want is to be responsible for outing any families that are going through these hard times."