Showing local seniors how much we care this holiday season
The contributions of our senior citizens can be seen throughout our communities. They have worked and volunteered to build the foundations for what we have today and often are continuing to contribute everywhere you look. As a way of letting our local elders know how much we appreciate what they’ve done and the vast amount of experience and knowledge they still have to share with us today, Home Hardware is once again hosting its Gift from Angels program which aims to connect seniors in local care homes with gifts letting them know there are people that want to celebrate them this holiday season.
“It’s a program where the community buys gifts for the seniors in care homes that may not have family nearby or any family at all, in some cases,” explained Wendy Meger, General Manager of Selkirk Home Hardware Building Center.
Residents who want to support a senior this year can go down to Selkirk Home Hardware Building Center and find the Gift from Angels tree with all of the information.
“We have the tree set up in the store with paper angels on it. Each paper angel has the name and age of a resident in one of the homes. What people do is they come in, and they pick an angel off the tree. They go and buy an appropriate gift, bring it back to us unwrapped, with the angel, we will wrap it and label it and get it to the care homes for them to hand out to the residents,” said Meger.
This is the second year that the program has run. Last year they started small initially looking for gifts for Tudor House residents. After those angels flew off the tree, they expanded to Woodland Court residents. Because of the great success last year, they have decided to expand to residents in Red River Place and Betel Home as well as Tudor House and Woodland Court.
“It was so well received. People kept coming in and saying, ‘We want an angel. We want an angel,’ and we didn’t have more to give. So, this year, I figured we could go big,” said Meger.
Meger started the program because of her own experience of her father, Walter Meger, being in a nursing home and meeting the people that he lived alongside. After her father’s passing, the COVID-19 pandemic came and she thought of all of those people and how her father would feel if he didn’t have the ability to have visitors.
“I couldn’t imagine him being in that nursing home with no visitors, no gifts, no nothing. That was my reason for starting this gift. I just don’t want to see any senior feel that way, that they were forgotten or left behind,” she said.
Though she wasn’t able to personally deliver the gifts to their recipients last year Meger says that she heard how appreciated they were.
“The worker telling us about it was just tearing up with emotion telling us how excited everyone was and just the sheer joy,” said Meger.
The tags themselves have information about the age of the resident, their name so gifts and cards can be personalized and some suggestions about things they may like as well as areas of interest for them.
“Last year, people brought lap blankets, mugs, ornaments, slippers, hats, large print word searches, Sudokus as long as they’re large print and some large print books,” said Meger.
To show appreciation for residents participation in the program, the team at Home Hardware will put the names of the donors into a draw and the winner will come away with a Selkirk Biz Bucks card.
The draw will take place after the gifts have been delivered.
Meger appreciates residents who want to make a gift donation.
“I would just hope that everyone thinks of their grandmother or aunt or uncle or mother or father. Do it for them. Think of them being in that situation,” she said.
