Thanks to all who helped make Kincardine Christmas Hamper program a success

To the Editor:

On behalf of the Kincardine Community Services Christmas Hamper program, I sincerely thank all the people who make the whole thing possible.

I could not possibly name every person or organization as it takes the whole community pulling together to make Christmas just a little brighter for some folks who, otherwise, would not be able to have such a bountiful Christmas.

This year, we packed 164 hampers and distributed them to 96 families, 16 couples and 52 individuals. This represents a total of 433 people.

The Ecole Kincardine District Senior School Christmas Knights did an excellent job, once again, of collecting food and toys, Dec. 7. It was great to see the Grades 7 and 8s involved as well. It is heartwarming to see the smiles on the faces of the students who forfeit their Saturday morning to go door-to-door to gather the goodies.

We cannot thank them enough because without them, we would not have the necessary items to fill the hampers. The Christmas Knights committee agreed to do the food and toy drive a week earlier this year because of how late the “2nd Saturday in December” fell.

The earlier timing seemed to work well for our volunteers and the families who received the hampers. The Christmas Knights have agreed to continue with their collection on the “1st Saturday of December” next year.

A special thank you to my “band of merry elves,” the committee members, who committed a whole week to the project at a very busy time of the year. And to all of the willing volunteers who did a shift either toy-packing or food-packing.

We certainly missed Barb and Andy Burgess, who have been very active members of our committee, but wish them the very best in the next chapter of their adventure.

You can be assured that the community’s generous spirit made a Merry Christmas for many in Kincardine.

Until next year,
Heather Finnie
Kincardine Community Services Christmas Hamper Committee