Christmas Hamper Society collection period in full swing

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Strathmore Wheatland Christmas Hamper Society (SWCHS) began its annual toy and food drive as of Nov. 14 for this year’s Christmas hampers. 

Marilyn Galvin, chair of the SWCHS, said since the kickoff of this year’s collection period, a high volume of requests came in immediately. Now, though more requests continue to come in for hampers, the number of new requests on a daily basis is not so dramatic. 

“We started off fairly high with our requests for hampers, but it has leveled off a little bit now. There will be another rush here at the end of this month,” she said. “We have food and toy donation bins all over Strathmore, and you can go to our Facebook page to see where they all are. We are probably on par with where we were last year with what we have received thus far.”

The Christmas hampers were started in Strathmore in 1981 by the Happy Gang, initially being able to help out a handful of families at a time. 

Eventually, Galvin explained, the program continued to grow into the large-scale initiative that it is today, with hundreds of families supported by the Christmas hampers every year.

She estimated this year will see more than 300 food hampers requested, a target she is confident the society will be able to hit. 

For the toys, it is presenting a bit more of a challenge as the team is estimating nearly 400 requests will be received from the local community. 

“Everything is going to make an impact. We are finding this year, which is unbelievable, that the businesses around town are running their own collections with incentives for people to bring in and drop off,” said Galvin. “The town is offering to forgive tickets for donations, we have others who are offering percentages off with their businesses, we have great involvement this year from the sports teams and clubs who are promoting bringing toys or food to their games.”

Last year, according to Galvin, the volume of hampers needed was up by 15 per cent from the year before. She explained the team this year has attempted to budget and plan for even higher numbers of requested hampers this year.

Ultimately, the goal is to be able to provide a hamper to each family who requests one and be able to give those folks the extra help that they need.

“It takes a real big family to make this happen, and it takes a lot of support from all of our businesses and individuals,” said Galvin. “We get donations from even outside of Strathmore which is wonderful.”

The cut-off date of this year’s collection period for donating to the hampers is Dec. 13, in order for the team to be able to assemble them and distribute to the families who requested them.