The Trust X Alliance is holding its Spring Invitational in the Los Angeles area this week, and Tuesday, the channel community turned its charitable attention to those displaced by the Fort McMurray forest fire.

Trust X has a history of doing “giving back” events when it hosts its bi-annual events, as do many other channel communities. In Trust X’s case, this is done under the Trust X Cares initiative, and is typically decided upon well in advance of the event. But in this case, efforts to raise funds for the northern Alberta community came together in less than two weeks, championed by members of the western Canadian Wild West chapter of Trust X, and Ingram Micro Canada’s Nancy Stabile.

Ashley Schell, director of IT procurement services at Saskatchewan-based WBM Office Systems, a Wild West member, took to the stage Tuesday morning at the event to make the case for donating to Fort McMurray relief efforts, and the results were nearly immediate — less than five hours after his presentation, contributions from solution providers alone were north of $4,000, with that number expected to grow as the group continues to shine a spotlight as the event continues on Wednesday. Add to that other donations from Trust X chapters, including matched donation from the Southern Star chapter, and from Ingram Micro itself, and the group is at about $20,000 raised at present. That number could grow substantially as partners get on board, and particularly if TrustX vendor partner start to get involved.

“It speaks to our culture, and the culture of the TrustX Alliance in giving back,” said Schell Tuesday afternoon.

Neil Medwed, president and CEO of Dallas-based Preferred Technology Solutions, and chair of the Trust X Care initiative, said the group focuses on urging each member organization, and even each individual in the community, to decide how best to contribute to the charities important locally, regionally, nationally or internationally, and whether to donate money, time, other materials, or any combination. The important thing is to give.

“The wonderful thing about Trust X Cares is that it’s not an Ingram Micro thing saying ‘This is what you’ll do,’” Medwed said. “A lot of people have a desire to be more charitable, but may not have the knowledge of how to do it. By educating, I believe we can make such a big difference in the community we live in.”

The group has arranged to make donations through the Canadian Red Cross, making the donations eligible for dollar-for-dollar matching by the federal government. Those who wish to make a donation to the Red Cross via the Trust X community can do so via this link.

Schell said that while raising money for Fort McMurray is a focus at the event, he’s hopeful that many members will also make it a focus away from the event. For example, he said his employer “are going to do some events” to do some more fundraising for the cause after the team is all back in the offices after this week’s invitational.

“The Trust X Cares initiative is all about helping in times like this,” said Medwed. “We like to say as a community that individually, we’re strong, but collectively, we’re extraordinary. The timing of this event made it the perfect platform for us to be collectively extraordinarily.