Simcoe County charities make final push before holiday season

It's the home stretch for Simcoe County charities preparing for final plans to meet holiday demand.

As many people prepare their final plans for the holidays, thousands across Simcoe County need help to even be able to celebrate, and now is the critical push for local charities to meet that demand.

For instance, food bank dependence does not take a break during the holidays.

In Bradford, Angel Munro is one of 1,400 people who rely on the Helping Hand Food Bank each month.

“I come here because I need to. I’m on disability and we don’t get enough on disability to provide food for our families,” said Munro. “Without the support of the community there’s a lot of families that wouldn’t have a Christmas, wouldn’t have food.”

The Helping Hand is three quarters of the way to their $100,000 holiday season goal, which they hope to reach by New Year’s Eve.

“Food costs still are skyrocketing,” said Carolyn Khan, Helping Hand Food Bank executive director. “People just can’t afford to do just everything all the time and food just happens to be one thing that food banks can provide.”

At Christmas Cheer in Barrie, a Georgian College faculty member had the honour of packaging the campaign’s 1,600th food box on Wednesday.

“It’s fantastic - it just puts the icing on the cake so-to-speak for a wonderful day of volunteering,” said Suzie Addison-Toor, the college’s vice-president of student success.

Meanwhile, the race to the holiday finish line was in full force.

The Christmas Cheer warehouse was filled with volunteers preparing 1,400 toy bags and nearly 2,000 food boxes, all bound for 2,100 families, including nearly 3,000 children.

“It’s just about protecting that innocence, protecting that hope, protecting that joy and giving the families in our community a little bit of breathing room and to know that they’re not alone,” said Sandra Yaquo, Christmas Cheer president. “No matter what they’re going through, they’re not alone.”

But only sitting at $371,000 of their $500,000 goal as of Wednesday morning and more than 60 on the waitlist, there is still plenty of work to be done before Friday night’s deadline.

“This community comes through each and every year and I have to continue to have faith and hope,” added Yaquo.

For the Salvation Army, its Kettle Campaign experienced a drop after reaching its goal last year.

“The goal was 500,000 - we’re currently at about 50 per cent of that with a week to go,” said Nathan Sykes, executive director of the Bayside Mission. “We weren’t sure if it would still be a reasonable goal this year, but we wanted to maintain it because we are seeing our service numbers go up.”

For those looking to support the campaigns, Christmas Cheer organizers say they are in need of maple syrup, pancake mix, noodles, and toys for kids aged seven to 10.

The Helping Hand Food Bank is short on peanut butter, baby food, and baby formula.