Single father of five sees Christmas wish and more come true

A Christmas wish come true for a Calgary family A Calgary community came together to help make a Christmas wish come true for a single father of five. Bill Macfarlane explains.

For the past year, Richard Ouimette has been without a home -- at times sleeping outside with his five kids, four to 13 years old.

"There's a lot of times you want to give up but as a parent, you don't have that choice. Even at the end of a sh**ty day, we're all still together," Ouimette said.

Four years ago, he lived comfortably in a home with a double garage and worked managing batches of cement at a plant.

The plant closed and he was laid off.

Then came a divorce -- one thing led to another.

By last summer, he began living at a motel, sharing one room with his kids.

"Two queen beds -- me and five kids, so it was two kids on each bed and then usually my oldest and me on the floor," Ouimette said.

But last week, he went to see a house for rent.

After speaking with the landlord and explaining his story, he got a big break:

"The next day, after we'd looked at the house, he said, 'I'll work with you on the damage deposit -- you guys have a home for Christmas,'" Ouimette said.

That initial kindness got the ball rolling -- after looking for some furniture on the Ogden community page, a nearby bar got involved.

"We got the families involved, then we got the regulars involved, then it kind of just expanded," said Matt Wilton, general manager at Station Pub and Grill in Riverbend.

"Then we got everyone beds and then we started tackling the necessities for them."

Just over a week ago, Ouimette slept on the floor of a motel room.

Now, his home is furnished, stockings are hung for the kids by the tree and the freezer is full of donated food.

"To go from having nothing to having everything and each other is..." Ouimette said, temporarily at a loss for words.

He says he's touched by the kindness of strangers.

"Anything you do can make the biggest difference, that's it. We weren't expecting any of this and all of it has been amazing."