It’s all about the workers — and the kids.

Support for The Province’s Empty Stocking Fund at Rogers Sugar stretches back nearly four decades, and the fundraiser got its humble beginnings in the backrooms of the unionized shop.

Every year, the roughly 200 employees of Rogers — a fixture on Vancouver’s industrial waterfront since 1890 — gather for a potluck in the maintenance room before taking time off for the holidays.

During gatherings in the 1980s, a couple of workers put up a Christmas tree and anyone who plucked a candy cane off would make a donation. It evolved into a raffle that kept getting bigger and bigger over the years, with all proceeds to The Province newspaper’s century-plus-old charity .

A group of volunteers sell tickets for donated prizes ranging from power tools to

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