Pay It Forward: Summer’s flooring doubling down on holiday donations

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ)-- It’s time for Pay It Forward — our program recognizing people who make our community a better place to live. The holiday season can be filled with joy, gifts, and festive cheer for many. But for some, it’s a time of stress, loneliness, and need.

One Central Oregon business is going above and beyond to help bring Christmas spirit to those who need it most.

Summer’s Flooring in Bend not only participated in the Central Oregon Toy Drive, they matched every donation received at their location. Now, they’re filling their donation box even higher. They plan to use the five-hundred dollars to make sure as many kids as possible have something to unwrap on Christmas morning.

For owner Michael Summers, giving back is the reason for the season — a lesson inspired by his own family’s story.

Michael Summers, Owner, Summer’s Flooring: “When my dad was a little kid, the fire department came and delivered a bunch of toys because they were exceptionally poor. My grandpa said, you can keep one toy. The rest of them were taken to another family that was worse off than them. It's one of his favorite Christmas memories. There's always been this neat connection with little kids needing to know that they're not forgotten and that they're loved and somebody is thinking about them. Trying to bring some joy and some magic back into the hearts of kids that they don't have that. We're going to go out and get a bunch more toys. It's going to be very fun.”

Summer’s Flooring received this month’s 500 dollar Pay It Forward award, sponsored by Dutch Bros and Mid Oregon Credit Union, to help them buy even more toys for the drive.

Kyle Frick, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Community Relations, Mid-Oregon Credit Union: “There's always lots of news and some and a lot of it's not good news. So this is a really our chance to go out and identify people that are doing great things in the community like this, that we can help support. So we're really excited to continue to do that. These gifts are really going to make a real difference to some of those kids.”

The toy drive runs through December 23rd.

For drop-off locations, and which organizations help increase the impact of your donation, you can visit the web version of this story.

If you know of someone, or organization deserving recognition for helping others, you can nominate them for Pay It Forward.

KTVZ, Dutch Bros, and Mid Oregon Credit Union may award them with five-hundred dollars to keep the giving going. You can find the Pay It Forward page on K-T-V-Z dot com under the Community tab.