Christmas donations, dinners and decorated bags

This Christmas season has featured donations, dinners and decorated bags.

NA Engineering of Kincardine made a donation of $540 worth of non-perishable grocery items to the Kincardine Food Bank. This is the most the company has collected; over the past seven years, it has donated close to $2,000 to the food bank.

Employees made financial donations which were matched by the company, and then Steve Wise, Mike Laker and Justin Arts of NA Engineering went shopping for the food to present to the food bank.

Pat Stewart, one of the food bank co-ordinators, said the community has been very generous this year.

"We have received donations from companies, schools, industries and individuals," she said. "We should have enough to get us through the next couple of months."

To the end of November, 2,683 people had used the food bank, compared to a total of 2,578 for all of last year, said Stewart. This included 726 families, 322 singles and 1,127 children. Of those, 61 were new to the food bank.

"It's still the high cost of hydro bills prompting increased use of the food bank," said Stewart, "and our seasonal workers are also now without work."

Meanwhile, over at Boston Pizza, the Kincardine and District Lions Club hosted its seniors Christmas dinner, following a one-year hiatus.

Lions members were serving food, pouring coffee and tea, and clearing tables for the 112 seniors who attended. There were 72 seniors at the first setting, and 40 at the second.

Appreciation goes to those who sponsored the free Christmas dinner for seniors in the community: Sobeys, Tim Hortons, No Frills and Boston Pizza, and of course, the Lions Club.

And finally, at the LCBO (liquor store), manager Brenda Christie and her staff were putting product in single-bottle bags decorated by students from Ecole Elgin Market and Huron Heights public schools, and St. Anthony's School.

The students decorated about 500 bags with messages emphasizing "Don't Drink and Drive."

One bag was particularly emphatic: "Chances are you're here because you're buying alcohol for a party or celebration. Then you're going to stay up late, drink a lot, then say you're fine and drive home. You're probably drunk and there's a high probability you won't arrive. So please, stay overnight at their house instead of a hospital, arrive home in a cab instead of arriving in a ditch. Go ahead and put down the booze, pick up some hot chocolate. Then wind up A-okay the next day."

Christie said the bags have been well-received by the customers and staff at the LCBO.