Christmas Spirit -- Giving to the Community

Christmas Spirit is about supporting and helping those who are less fortunate. My Christmas takes place a few days before the official day when the final stage of our Christmas Hamper program wraps up.

What Are Christmas Hampers?

The hamper program provides low income members of the community with food and gifts to help make their Christmas a bit easier to handle. The contents of the hamper is largely dependent on donations received from members of the community.

The program run by the local Legion has been operating for about fourty years. I’ve had the privilege of chairing it for about 10 years.

It Begins in November

In early November two volunteers spend several hours a week being available for members of the community to apply for their hampers. Our program requires each applicant to provide ID, proof of address and proof of income. We use the most recent chart on poverty line incomes to determine eligibility.

My sister-in-law was telling me the program in her community in British Columbia will provide a hamper for anyone who asks. When she learned that, she wasn’t real comfortable in continuing to help the program. I can understand that.

We’ve learned people have greater confidence in donating to the program when they know we check incomes and also have measures in place to attempt to stop abuse.

Managing the Abuse

Abuse, applicants trying to receive more than one hamper is an ongoing concern. The vast majority of applicants are appreciative of the help they receive and only apply for one hamper. Others try to figure out how to game the system and get help from multiple sources.

It’s that minority that gives us the biggest headaches. When they succeed, they draw precious resources away from those who need a fair share. Stopping them takes a lot of energy and patience. It’s a constant struggle to find balance between being firm enough to block abuse of the system yet flexible enough to be able to deal with and understand irregular situations.

Communication between the groups in the county doing hampers is the first line of defense. We each agree on the area we are covering and take applications from that area. When someone arrives from another area they are redirected to the correct agency. Other agencies like Children’s Aid and the local Health Unit will also refer their clients to us, that is often where the opportunity for abuse is greatest.

While the branch is the primary hamper program in our township, there is a church group who overlaps into this area. Since they have ongoing contact with some of these clients throughout the year, we work together to avoid duplication. Each applicant signs an acknowledgement that we will share their information with other agencies.

Minimal Potential Duplicates

We had about five potential duplications this year. Most of them turned out to be agencies doing referrals to one group while the client applied to another. The client wasn’t always aware the referral had been done.

We had one where the grandmother was down as an emergency contact for a child at school. The school referred the grandmother as a family to the church group because they thought the grandmother had custody. Meanwhile the mother had applied for the whole family to us. We caught it, sorted it out and the mother set the school straight on the difference between emergency contact and custody.

We had another where a couple tried to get four hampers, two of them from us. They applied with separate addresses. Within a few days the guy’s landlord informed me that his address was only valid until the end of November as they two of them were moving in together. I changed their record to one hamper. Then a list arrived from the Salvation Army in a nearby community and her name appeared on it. It also appeared on the list of the church group. After some discussion, the church group did the single hamper they would receive.

Gifts For the Children

When we take applications for hampers, we also take a wishlist for each child. Each wishlist is given a number which identifies the agency, the family and the number of children in the family to that agency. I create a master list which will later be cross referenced to the food hamper.

This list is then taken into a nearby community where there is a “Giving Tree” at the local mall. Staffed by volunteers, cards are placed on the tree for shoppers to choose and shop for the child. They bring the gifts back to the tree where they are sorted by agency and sent back to them for distribution.

When we are ready to assemble hampers, a local school bus firm provides a bus, driver and some volunteers to go and pick up the gifts for the children in our program.

The Giving Tree program is a huge benefit for us. The gifts the children receive is based on their interests rather than on the luck of what has been donated through toy drives. It also leaves the local program free to focus on getting the food needs met.

Giving Tree gifts arriving.

The Donations for the Hampers

There is a diversity of ways the collections are done. The local Township asks everyone attending their Christmas party to bring in food items. We’ve had individuals holding house parties asking their guests to bring food items. Most of the stores and businesses in town place boxes in their stores for customers to drop off food.

The local Firefighters Association parked a van outside the local food store for a day to receive packages of food the store had made up for people to buy and donate. This saved the customer from having to decide what to get and saved them a bit of money as well. The $30 package actually held $33 in food items. Some people still bought their own choices.

Firefighters finished unloading their van at the branch

Other groups and individuals raise cash to donate toward the cause. The cash is used to purchase certain items to make sure every hamper has them. The items include: sugar, bread, margarine, carrots, potatoes, onions, cranberry sauce, gravy.

The local Rotary club covers the cost of the turkey that will go in each hamper. A local fruit market provides apples. A local quilting group provides a handmade quilt for any child under one year of age. Another local lady spends the year knitting hats and mitts for the kids.

Food for the hampers

Bringing it All Together

As the donations of food arrive, a team of members sort the food by kind into milk crates. This greatly speeds up the assembly of the hampers when the time comes.

Behind the scenes the applicants have been entered into a spreadsheet and sorted different ways to uncover any possible duplications. The list is then sorted by address and then the hampers are numbered. There is a portion of the hampers which will be delivered, the rest are to be picked up by the applicants.

I am the only person who sees the list of names other than the partner I work with doing the applications. When the hampers are setup, they are coded with the hamper number, Giving Tree number, number of adults and the children’s ages and gender. The boxes are filled based on that information. This year we had hampers for single individuals up to families with five children.

This year, hamper assembly took just a matter of hours. What has been in the past a week long job has been gradually brought down to about a day. It takes us two days to get the hampers out the door as same of the applicants seem to take their time arriving, keeping volunteers waiting around. I’m going to try setting a deadline on pickup next year to see if we can solve that.

Getting Them Out the Door

Once everything is in and the boxes are setup, we will then know the time frame for getting them out the door. I first notify those who are receiving delivery so the deliveries can go out before any pickups are done. Then those who are picking up are notified when they can come in.

When an applicant arrives they are directed to the table where I am. I look up their hamper and call out the number of the hamper and the Giving Tree if needed. Volunteers take a cart and pick them up while the applicant is signing for receipt. The cart is then passed over to the people at the back door who are loading vehicles.

A hamper being loaded into a vehicle

When the last hamper goes out the door, I really have a sense that Christmas is complete even though it is still a few days away. The program is a lot of work and at times can be frustrating dealing with some of the people while trying to treat them with respect when you want to shake them to see if they are awake. For everyone like that is two or three who are so appreciative, that the frustrations can be just brushed off.

The ninety hampers we distributed helped 129 adults and 68 children.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, no matter how you celebrate it.

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