When Warren Wagstaff isn’t earning his daily bread as a financial advisor in Vancouver with Toronto-based Raymond James Ltd., he’s often on the water somewhere far from the city’s concrete trying to hook a wily West Coast salmon or trout.

But on the day in 1992 when Wagstaff first became involved with Sleeping Children Around the World, little did this avid angler realize that he was about to become well and truly hooked himself.

Fast-forward to January 2011: the 52-year-old Wagstaff is hastily packing his bag for what is classified officially at Raymond James as vacation time — but Wagstaff’s destination is hardly your typical vacation spot.

Wagstaff is about to catch a flight for Calcutta, where, along with a handful of other volunteers, he’ll spend the next few weeks in that megacity’s poorest slums giving children there something children in Canada or other fully developed countries usually take for granted: a secure, healthy place to sleep.

That’s what SCAW has been doing since it was founded in 1970 by Ontario residents Murray Dryden and his wife, Margaret. (The Drydens are the parents of Hockey Hall of Famer and Liberal member of Parliament Ken Dryden.) This low-key registered charity provides bed kits to needy children worldwide; since its founding, SCAW has funded and provided more than one million bed kits for children in 33 underdeveloped and developing countries.

Murray Dryden, who passed away in 2004, founded SCAW following a trip to India during which, while walking at night, he tripped over a child sleeping in the street.

But, as Wagstaff explains, the charity’s bed kits are more than just beds. They also contain items to protect children’s health and help them learn in school so they can build better and safer lives for themselves.

“It’s the right of every child in this world to have a comfortable, safe place to sleep,” Wagstaff says.

In many developing countries one of the most serious risks to sleeping children is a bite from a malaria-carrying mosquito. That’s why many SCAW bed kits include mosquito netting.

In addition to mattresses, pillows and other sleeping items, the bed kits also contain such items as school clothes, school bags, stationery, a towel, an umbrella and a dictionary. Kits are compiled to suit the environment of specific regions.

“It’s usually easy enough to write a cheque for a charity,” Wagstaff says. “But after being involved in SCAW for a number of years, I reached a point at which I wanted to be more than just someone who writes cheques. I wanted to become part of the other end of the process, in which the kits are actually distributed to the children, [so] you get to talk to them, shake their hands and look them in the eye.”

Wagstaff’s latest trip to Calcutta is his fifth since he began volunteering for SCAW’s overseas distribution assignments in 2006. His first trip was to Togo in West Africa, followed by trips to Tanzania, the Philippines and a previous visit to Calcutta. On this latest trip, Wagstaff is acting as team leader for the first time.@page_break@Wagstaff was first introduced to SCAW by work colleagues in 1992. He began his involvement by simply purchasing bed kits as Christmas gifts, which he donated on behalf of family, friends and clients. This, he explains, was a natural step, because he’d been raised in a household in which charity work was the norm.

Wagstaff’s first trip as a distribution team member in 2007 proved that his decision to become more actively involved was the right one.

“That trip and each one since has been very satisfying,” he says, “because I get to meet all the children receiving kits — as well as their families.”

But it’s the children themselves who leave the biggest imprint on Wagstaff’s heart.

“In many cases, a bed kit is the first gift these children have ever received,” he says. “And often we’re the first people of our kind that they’ve seen in person and they’re a little nervous, so we play games with them to make them feel more at ease.

“Sometimes, however, they don’t realize at first that the kit in front of them is theirs. One little boy, I remember, just looked at the kit for a moment, pushed it aside and gave me a big hug. Then he grabbed his new kit and giggled as he ran away. That brought tears to my eyes.”

Other times, Wagstaff admits, the job is tough emotionally.

“It’s particularly difficult when you see children with medical conditions that would be so easily cured in North America,” Wagstaff says. “Or you meet a child whose life you know will be cut short because in that country, there’s no treatment available.”

For the most part, however, the children are incredibly happy, despite their difficult circumstances, Wagstaff observes. More to the point, team members realize that the bed kits will give these children a small shot at a better life.

SCAW also tries to have as many of its kits as possible made up in recipient countries in order to create local economic activity, Wagstaff explains. Then the six-member teams from Canada come in for the distribution.

Kits, which cost $35, are given to children on behalf of individual donors. When each kit is handed out, Wagstaff and his team take a photograph of the recipient, which is then sent to the SCAW donor as a keepsake.

“Every penny of that $35 donation goes directly to the bed kit,” Wagstaff says, “because no costs for administration are taken off.”

All volunteers on the distribution trips pay their own expenses, he adds, and a SCAW trust fund covers the non-profit group’s bare-bones administration costs. SCAW receives no government financial assistance. Nor does SCAW do any paid telemarketing. Instead, it relies on word of mouth and its website (www.scaw.org) to spread the news of its work.

“This work has become a regular part of my life,” says Wagstaff, who is married and has an adult daughter. “And I’m anticipating that as long as there is a need for me to go on these trips, I’ll just keep going on them.” IE