Help Santa get better

Photo: Foilan's photography

A fundraiser for a beloved Kelowna celebrity is taking place after he was in a serious collision.

On Sept. 22, the community will gather together to give back to the man who has given so much to the community.

Santa Claus Tom Kliner was left hospitalized after he was hit head on while driving his motorcycle on Springfield Road on Sept. 1.

Emergency crews arrived on scene near Willits Road to find Kliner, 59, lying injured on the road. Police said the impact of the collision ejected him into the windshield of the car that hit him when the car was attempting to turn left.

The crash left him with three cracked vertebrae in his neck, staples and stitches and a broken bone in his foot.

“He spent years helping our community. Now he needs our help,” reads a post online about the event.

The fundraiser will take place on Saturday at the XChange Landmark building from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.

A GoFundMe page has also been set up to raise money for Kliner as he will not be able to work for at least a month.

Kliner said after the crash that he was “alive, in a lot of pain and more to tell you, but it will have to wait a bit.”