Clients were lining up before the 9am start time for the distribution of Christmas hampers through the Centre Wellington Food Bank (CWFB) on Dec. 11 at the Centre Wellington Community Sportsplex.
The community room was full of gifts and food for client pick up and the volunteers were in high spirits.
With over 200 volunteers, CWFB board chair Jackie Andrews said the distribution went well.
“Everybody has been there for at least three or four years now so they know what they’re doing and they know how to improve on what they did last year,” she said. “So I think it went as smoothly, if not more smoothly, than last year.”
Even the heavy snow didn’t dampen spirits or impact the number of clients who came to pick up hampers – it just meant more clients needed help transporting hampers and gifts to their homes.
“We have a transportation group of volunteers so the weather didn’t really impact us at all,” Andrews said.
The hamper program served about 200 families this year and the Christmas Angel Program served 98, she explained.
The Christmas hampers contain food donated through local churches, schools and service clubs, providing families breakfast, dinner and dessert for Christmas Day.
The Christmas Angel Program matches a client with a donor in the community who buys gifts for that specific family. Both the hampers and gifts were picked up on Dec. 11.
Even those clients not signed up for the Angel program were able to shop with a volunteer through the Lions toy drive shop, Andrews said.
This was an area of the hall containing unwrapped donated toys, organized by age and gender. Clients with children could choose approximately two gifts per child, plus stocking stuffers and one stuffed animal for each child.
Even grandparents or aunts and uncles who had identified a need were able to shop with a volunteer for just the right gift. Clients had access to this service regardless of whether or not they were registered for the Christmas Angel Program.
Any of the gifts and hampers leftover went back to the CWFB so clients who couldn’t make it to the hamper days or didn’t sign up were still able to choose gifts for their children and receive a hamper, Andrews said.
If more is needed, Andrews is confident the food bank will be able to make up additional hampers.
“Nothing leaves our community,” Andrews said. “It all stays here and it all goes to our clients at some point in time when there’s a need.”
Even before the program was completed for the year, community members were volunteering to be donors for the Christmas Angel Program next year. Andrews added she also already has new volunteers signed up to help with hamper days in the future.
