For 12 years, Community Christmas Hamper Program has made the holidays easier on people facing hard times in Grand Forks. That’s a tall order in any given year, all the more so in 2020.
With the pandemic straining people’s budgets across the city, Program co-ordinator Darrell Hardy said this year set an all time high for financial donations by city businesses and private residents alike.
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“The community is very generous,” he told The Gazette after around 120 people collected their hampers and Christmas toys from the Gospel Chapel Wednesday, Dec. 16. With 72 hampers to be delivered Thursday, Hardy and the program’s dozen volunteers are not quite finished their work.
“There’s a lot of people in this community that could use a hand, and not just at Christmastime,” and “someone has to step forward and do it.”
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Hardy and perhaps a dozen volunteers have done. And so did the program’s partners in grocery stores like Buy Low, Save-On and Extra foods, which donated cloth and paper bags as well as $25 gift cards that went into hampers. Eggs were donated by Westbridge’s Spinghill farms; apples by Grand Forks’ Ken Schneider.
Those who qualified for family hampers were asked to shop for toys collected by staff at Grand Forks Realty and by individual donors who left unopened toys under “Angel trees” put up by Save-On Foods and the Grand Forks Credit Union, Hardy said.
Volunteers co-ordinated Wednesday’s pick-ups according to the latest COVID-19 guidelines by Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry. Singles and couples without children were given their hampers at a side-door, Hardy explained. Meanwhile, those collecting family hampers were asked to wait in socially-distanced groups of five. Everyone who came inside, including The Gazette, was asked to wear a face mask.
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