Donations fall short of costs—but it’s not too late to give
The holiday season has become a challenging one for the Morden Christmas Cheer Board.
It faced a substantially higher number of hamper requests as the packing and delivery days took place this week, but the financial support has so far not kept pace.
“Our hampers are up, and the money is not keeping up … so it’s not an ideal combination,” board member Ron Peters said Monday as work began on filling the hampers. “We’re going to be short … last year we were about $16,000 short, and it was heading that way again.”
“Even after Christmas, people can still be making donations,” stressed chairperson Carolyn Schellenberg.
The Cheer Board had anticipated there would be a significant need that would at least match 2022’s numbers, which reached just over 300 hampers.
The final 2023 tally came in at 360 hampers, which represents a 20 per cent increase.
“So that is significant,” Schellenberg said. “All of a sudden, it went up like crazy with our applications.”
There were a number of opportunities for people to support the Christmas Cheer campaign this year.
Dairy Queen had the Angel Tree set up to collect new or unused toys, and volunteers were at the Morden tree lighting celebration to collect donations of toys, books and cash.
Tim Hortons sold Holiday Smile Cookies one week in November, with partial proceeds going to the Cheer Board, and the Morden Thunder collected donations at its annual Christmas Cheer game.
“People still like to give food,” noted Schellenberg. “For a couple years we did just gift cards … this year and last year we’ve done some food again as well.”
In addition to grocery gift cards and some non-perishable food items, hampers also include presents for the children in the recipient households.
Schellenberg said it is always heartwarming to see all of the different ways that individuals and groups support their efforts.
“Some people were bringing mitts or scarves they had knit themselves or they bought,” she said. “We had a colony donate baby booties … that kind of thing has been great to see.”
She was also thankful for the volunteer crew, who were again largely an experienced group “who have been doing this for years. We do need some younger volunteers … but we’ve got a great bunch of volunteers.
“It’s a hectic three days, but we still have fun doing it,” Schellenberg added.
You can make a donation to Morden Christmas Cheer by heading to their website, mordenchristmascheer.com, or via e-transfer to mordencheer@gmail.com.
