A local family found themselves travelling half way across North America for an unlikely reunion, all after answering a few innocent questions on Facebook.
Tammi Garbutt is a regular user of social media and is often connected to her family and friends on Facebook.
One day while cruising around on Facebook she answered a couple innocent questions posed on the Telus site.
“If I remember correctly the question was ‘what keeps you from your family during the holidays,’” Garbutt told The Mail. “Like I am sure everyone who answered it, it’s logistics. I have family everywhere.”
Her dad, brother and their families live in Missouri and Illinois respectively, and mainly because of the distance, she has not seen her family in a number of years. Because it was a simple question, she can’t even remember exactly how she responded.
She thought nothing of it until a couple days later when she was contacted by Tellus to expand on her answer. She provided her contact information. A short time, she was again contacted and asked for more information.
Tammi told them she had not seen her brother in about 17 years. He is a truck driver and while they have attempted to get together over the last few years, fate has not allowed them to meet up.
In fact, the last time they tried to meet, a broken down truck prevented the reunion.
Her story was compelling, and eventually it was arranged that Tammi, her husband Jay, and children Nicole and Josh would be heading south to meet up with her brother and father. She was led to believe she would be surprising them and she was concerned the logistics would not mesh up.
Her worries were for naught. In fact, the surprise was on her. When they arrived at the airport in Illinois,, they were directed to a limousine that was to take them to their hotel.
“The limo door opened… my brother got out and I stopped dead in my tracks. I was just shocked, they totally pulled one over on me,” said Tammi.
It was a great reunion; this was the first time that Tammi’s children had met their uncle, and the day culminated with a trip to a St. Louis Blues game.
The next day they drove to her fathers to visit and then returned a couple days later from the whirlwind tour.
This was an incredible gift for the family, and at the same time, Telus hired a crew to document the whole event for an online campaign.
Dan Sorotschynski, director of marketing for social media, digital and events for Telus told The Mail this was the second time they have done such a campaign. Last year they asked people through social media if they could give anyone anything they liked, what would it be? This year it has to do more with connections.
“Our business is connecting people virtually everyday, whether it be through telephone or Internet. We realize it is super important to keep in touch, but we realize at the end of the day, nothing beats the human connection,” said Sorotschynski.
He said Tammi’s story was compelling, and she was selected with four others among thousands of responses.
“It only made sense to act on it and make it happen,” he said.
It was thrilling for Tammi.
“Seeing how the ‘movie magic’ happened was really interesting, just seeing how they set up shots and how long they shoot,” she said. “I was very nervous, but the crew was amazing and they made us really comfortable.”
While she understands the film was for promotional use, she couldn’t understate how professional and caring they were in making this reunion happen.
“It is incredible, the stuff they do for a three or four minute commercial has such an affect,” she said. “It is for just a little thing, and we gained so much on the other end.”
Away from the filming, hockey games, hotels and flight, they left with something more important.
“My brother said there is no way another 17 years is going to go by,” said Tammi.
Telus will be launching the videos on December 19 through its online platforms.
