Gimli elves spread holiday cheer
More than 400 cards have been delivered to residents at Betel Home in Gimli.
The Gimli Christmas Elves have been hard at work this year, leaving no building or person untouched by their cheer. As they spruced up the town for the holiday season, the elves also decorated the personal care home (PCH), hanging decorations of reds, greens, and golds in the hallways, in the communal rooms, and all around the building and setting up Christmas trees around almost every corner.
The Gimli Christmas Elves also added something new to the PCH this year — a Christmas mailbox.
It sits right in front of Betel Home, seen from the multipurpose room. The elves and PCH staff and volunteers then got the word out about the new mailbox, inviting community members to send residents Christmas cards.
The Gimli elves installed a mailbox for the community to send Christmas cards to the Betel Home residents
“It’s just a lovely idea,” said Pat Nuspl, long-time volunteer with Betel Home. “We thought it was so great they came up with this.”
Some classes in local schools decorated cards for Betel Home residents, other organizations and groups got together to do so as well. And some people just made cards on their own time to send some Christmas cheer. Nuspl said a lot of residents had cards addressed directly to them after people called and asked for names to address their cards to. Not all cards were for someone specific, though — they don’t have to be.
The cards started coming in mid-November, and in just a couple weeks, each of the 80 residents at Betel Home had three cards in their rooms. As of last week, more than 400 had been delivered to the PCH, with more coming in each day. The recreation coordinators at the home are the ones checking the Christmas mailbox and sorting through the cards, then delivering them to the residents.
“It was a really nice outpouring from the community when this opportunity came,” said Nuspl.
She said the residents have been thrilled to receive the Christmas cards. With recent respiratory illness outbreaks, the PCH hasn’t been able to have gatherings, so receiving the cards is a safe way for them to connect with the community.
“It’s very important for the community and the residents to connect,” said Nuspl. “Stuff like this actually makes it more enjoyable cause [staff] can sit down with [the residents] and show them the cards when there aren’t the same activities there usually is for them.”
The mailbox at Betel Home will be up until the end of the holiday season. Everyone is welcome to create, sign, and send cards to the residents; all they have to do is drop it off in the mailbox in front of the building.
This outpouring from the community has brought immeasurable delight not only to the residents but also to the dedicated staff and volunteers at Betel Home.
