They’re wearing bright yellow jackets complete with large identification badges. They’re going door-to-door to raise money for a local organization.

And they have the complete backing of the group they’re representing.

Rocky Mountain Marketing representatives will be wearing their jackets and badges and visiting residents from Vernon to Sicamous raising money for the North Okanagan Shuswap Crime Stoppers Society.

“We will be going door-to-door from now until Dec. 23 or until the 3,000 brochures are sold,” said Shaun McArdle, president and director of operations for Rocky Mountain Marketing.

Representatives will be selling a brochure that contains coupons from participating North Okanagan-Shuswap businesses, featuring values totalling $642.

The brochures cost $28, tax included, with 20 per cent of the sales going to the Crime Stoppers program.

The coupons feature recession-friendly, lucrative offers from local businesses, including free products or buy-one-get-one-free deals.

“Our objective is to create awareness and build the bridge to the community so they fully understand the facilitation of the Crime Stoppers program,” said McArdle, “and how, through anonymity, they can conduit information to the Crime Stoppers program which is then facilitated to the RCMP units to investigate the crimes.”

Since its inception 20 years ago, the North Okanagan Shuswap Crime Stoppers Society has collected more than $14 million in drugs seized through tips from the public, recovered more than $748,000 in property and has received more than 5,000 tips.

Crime Stoppers gives people the ability to pass along information to the program and help solve crimes in their community without fear of retaliations, or having to testify in court, because of the anonymity of the calls.

However, like many organizations, Crime Stoppers needs to fundraise in order to survive. They do not receive funding from the RCMP or other police organizations.

“This initiative with Rocky Mountain Marketing does help us immensely with our program,” said Gord Molendyk, North Okanagan Shuswap Crime Stoppers spokesman.

“This particular way, the door-to-door campaign, is very beneficial for use in getting monies we need to run our program.”

Last year’s campaign raised more than $15,400 which goes towards paying out tips as well as training volunteers and education.

Admittedly, Rocky Mountain Marketing representatives run into a few problems when going door-to-door.

Because they’re out seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., with the days now being shorter, people are reluctant to open their doors after dark.

And, as Bruce Baron, corporate facilitator for Rocky Mountain Marketing pointed out, people want to give money to the program.

“We do not ask for, nor do we accept, donations for Crime Stoppers,” said Baron.

“That’s how we eliminate fraud. People get angry with us when we say we don’t accept donations. People should donate to Crime Stoppers, go ahead, but we can’t. If someone comes to their door and does ask for a donation, that’s someone trying to pull a scam.”

McArdle said he prides his organization on being professional.

“We don’t have issues with our representatives being belligerent or aggressive,” he said.

North Okanagan Shuswap Crime Stoppers averages 30-35 new tip calls per month. The phone line – 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) averages about 60 calls a month.