There are some 18-hundred OC Transpo operators in the city and Ottawa woman hopes to reach each one of them before Christmas.
She's affectionately known as the "Turtle Lady" and her mission is to hand out a chocolate Turtle and a note of thanks to every single bus driver.
It's certainly looks and sounds like Christmas inside Forest Atkinson's home.
“I absolutely love seeing this much chocolate all at once,” says Atkinson, as she dumps a pile of chocolate Turtles on her dining room table.
It certainly smells like chocolate inside her warm little house. Little wonder, with 18 hundred chocolate Turtles tucked under the Christmas tree.
“I definitely will always be Ottawa’s turtle lady,” she says to her mother Heather Miller, who is helping her assemble the hundreds of chocolates and cards at her table.
Atkinson has been Ottawa's turtle lady for two yearsm after she started handing out chocolate Turtles to some OC Transpo operators.
Atkinson works with clients with disabilities and rides the buses every day for hours to visit them.
It was a client who started her on this Turtle trek. He had presented her with a box of Turtles, which she had with her one day while riding a bus to visit him. She decided to share the Turtles with the bus operator, and the idea of the Turtle Lady was born. Her client, André sadly passed away last Christmas.
“This would be a good way to remind me of André,” says Atskinson, “and the generosity he brought to my life and influence me to give these Turtles to a driver.”
Atkinson wrote to Nestle's to ask for the chocolates at cost. They sent her 1800 for free. So, with home-made cards and hand-stamped envelopes, off she went to spread her Christmas cheer. She encountered OC Transpo operator Troy Pitkeathly on the Mackenzie King Bridge
“Merry Christmas, Troy,” she says as she hugs him and hands him her little present.
“It’s such a nice little treat,” says Pitkeathly, “It's brightens our day and we interact with people all the time and if we're in a good mood, it puts everbody in good mood, so it’s a give and take thing.”
So how does she plan to hand out all 1800 chocolate Turtles before Christmas? That remains to be seen. Just like the namesake creature, this process tends to crawl along.
“It's magical,” says Atkinson, as she steps off a bus after handing another chocolate to a driver, “giving out chocolates is making my Christmas and hopefully everyone else's.”
And clearly it is.
“Thank you very much,” says a bus operator, “and Merry Christmas.”
