Strathmore Christmas Hamper Society hosts donation blitz
By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Joe Lepage Photo
The Christmas Hamper Society hosted a donation blitz Dec. 3, at several local franchise locations to help collect food and toys for this year’s Christmas hampers.
Lynn Thurston, who spoke on behalf of the Christmas Hamper Society, said the annual event tends to have a fantastic impact for ensuring all the requested hampers get filled.
“This is the third year gathering at the stores. We fill our boxes there and then deliver them to our sorting venue,” she said. “It is one day out of our month-long campaign. We have two local Ringette and two local AA hockey teams (helping us) … the kids have signs and are very enthusiastic and they greet customers as they come in.”
Donation boxes for the Christmas Hamper Society were located at Sobeys, Co-Op, No Frills and Canadian Tire from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Saturday.
The idea was to hand out wish lists for the Christmas hampers to folks as they entered the building and let them decide whether to pick out a donation.
Thurston added the event has effectively replaced the Stuff a Bus campaign which used to operate prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The hampers get delivered to families in need at the conclusion of each year’s month-long collection period. This year, the campaign kicked off Nov. 14 and will conclude Dec. 13 in order to ensure enough buffer time to deliver each hamper.
Projections this year place requests for hampers roughly 15 per cent higher than last year, with approximately 350 food, and 350 toy hampers applied for throughout the community.
“We have a wish list and these are particular items that go into each hamper and then people are welcome to keep these lists,” explained Thurston. “Then they will have 10 more days of shopping if they want to contribute something else or contribute a little bit more.”
Regardless of the efforts of the Christmas Hamper Society outside, for the businesses, it was effectively a regular day.
In addition to running the blitz on Dec. 3, the Christmas Hamper Society has hosted drop off locations at several local hockey games throughout their collection period.
These have included locations at U16AA Raiders, the Wheatland Kings, U15AA Warriors, and the U13AA Braves.
This year marks the first that the Christmas Hamper Society has been working with local hockey teams in order to create more awareness and opportunities for folks to donate.
The Christmas Hamper Society also began collecting from their drop off locations from participating schools within Wheatland County starting Dec. 2, and continued to do so throughout the following week.