Oilers star visits Amazon sortation facility, helps present donations to charities

Edmonton Oilers forward Zach Hyman helped do a little packing at the Amazon facility Wednesday afternoon.

A few Amazon deliveries will arrive at local homes with something extra: packages signed by Edmonton Oilers star Zach Hyman.

The high-scoring winger surprised workers on Wednesday afternoon at the Amazon YEG2/YEG4 sortation centre in Acheson, just west of Edmonton.

“Coming here and seeing how much work is put into doing all the little things to make sure that your package gets from here to your house is pretty incredible,” Hyman told media.

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He took questions from employees, helped assemble packages and autographed some of them.

Three local charities also received donations from Amazon during Hyman’s visit: Edmonton’s Food Bank, the Parkland Food Bank and Adapt-Abilities.

“As athletes, we’re very privileged to be in the position that we’re in as role models and as people that members of the community look up to,” Hyman said.

“We’re fortunate that we have so much support from the community. It’s really important for us to be able to give back and show that we care.”

Melissa Schneider, a retail food specialist for Edmonton’s Food Bank, said the donation to purchase products from Amazon Prime for use in hampers is “very important” this time of year.

“This is our busiest time of the year right now,” Schneider said. “Our numbers are not going down; they’re going up, so we’re finding that the need for food is more now than ever in the 44 years that the food bank has been around.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Sean McClune