In case the world thinks tekkies have their heads so buried in research and discovery, that they don't think of anything else ...

TEC Edmonton and TEC Centre receptionist Audrey Dolinski is a lady with a big heart.

Audrey ensures the TEC Centre concession - a self-serve snack centre that works on a honour system - is well stocked with goodies.

This Christmas season, the proceeds from the concession, from our snacking, is going straight to feed others.

TEC Edmonton is purchasing all the festive goodies for three Christmas hampers to be delivered to less-fortunate families in Edmonton that are registered with the Edmonton Christmas Bureau.

After buying all the groceries for the hampers, there's still $2,000 in the concession kitty, and that money will be donated directly to the Christmas Bureau, which has a huge task ahead of itself in the next two weeks, of raising $1.8 million so 70,000 less-fortunate Edmontonians can enjoy a festive meal of some sort, be it a Christmas hamper or a Sobey's gift card. So far, 12 days before Christmas, the bureau is only 25% of the way to its goal, so if you can help, the link is below.

If you'd like to dedicate just a small portion of your gift-buying and Christmas holiday budget to the less fortunate among us, may TEC Talk offer you  some suggestions.

The above-mentioned Christmas Bureau of Edmonton has been helping out the less fortunate in our city at Christmas for 71 years. It's a wonderful organization that at this particular moment needs all the help it can get.

Santa's Anonymous was started 56 years ago by the 630 CHED radio station, and to this day is greatly supported by the Corus group of radio stations in Edmonton - CHED, iNews 880, CISN-FM and JOE-FM.  Through donations of toys and armies of volunteer gift wrappers and volunteer delivery, Santa's Anonymous makes sure no child from 0 to 12 in our city wakes up on Christmas Day without a gift.

Often overlooked are the teens in low-income families.  The Edmonton Sun's Adopt-A-Teen Christmas gift program for under-privileged teens has a goal of supplying 8,800 Edmonton teens aged 13 to 17 (again, about 10% of the teen population) with a $50 Walmart gift card each. As we write, Adopt-A-Teen has raised enough funds to take care of about 10% of those kids, who without Adopt-A-Teen's help, will have no gift at Christmas.

The Edmonton Food Bank has its special Christmas program, the CBC Turkey Drive. Last year, the CBC Turkey Drive supplied some 7,500 turkeys for the food bank to distribute to its many users. Don't worry, the Food Bank and the CBC are happy to accept cash in lieu of actual frozen birds! The cost per bird is $30.

Finally, the Salvation Army does a magnificent job of assisting those among us who are the "hard-core" poor. Without fanfare, with great dignity, the Sally Ann makes sure its clients receive enough assistance - toys, food, spiritual - to enjoy the Christmas season.