A farmer in Toronto is in his eighth year of giving away Christmas trees for those less fortunate.

Each year, Jessey Njau's Zawadi Farms purchases fresh trees from a friend's forestry farm and loads them onto his truck to donate.

He posts on Reddit and asks users to DM him for the location details, in exchange for one tree they're able to pick up for free on a first come, first serve basis.

Christmas trees loaded up in the truck.

Njau came to urban farming via the tech industry, and the tree giveaways started as a way to give back to the farming community for the generosity they showed in getting him started.

"(They were) really generous with the knowledge, the tools, the resources for me to learn and adapt and become a farmer on my own," Njau says. 

"And at the end of... the first season, we had a bunch of Christmas trees that I wanted to use as a way of saying thank you to the community."

He usually gets around 20 trees each year. When I spoke with Njau, he said he had about seven left.

One of the Christmas trees.

Over the years, he's heard from people who have just moved to Toronto alone, single people and people from families that are less well off. The reactions have all been heartwarming.

"This is one thing (where) they can have a sense of joy and bring a sense of light in their lives," he says. "So it's many, many stories upon that, that just adds to the flavour of what the trees bring to people."

He plans to keep doing the giveaway as long as he's able — and even hopes to expand it down the line. Right now, he does it all by himself. Sometimes his friends help him with the money for the trees and sometimes he uses funds from the farm.

He imagines a future year where the one-man tree charity involves more people, maybe where people can buy a tree, and along with it, donate one to their neighbour.