This Holiday Season will be different. Instead of looking forward to being together with family our minds are preoccupied on how we can celebrate the holidays this year.
We, here at the MWCN, are also working differently as we create exciting new activities as well as partnerships with the community events in our neighborhoods virtually.
Our offices are looking like Santa’s Workshops. Crafts and refurbished dolls, toys, food, knitted items that are being packaged up for seniors in residences along with a pair of socks, generously donated by our MWCN knitters and coordinated by our volunteer, Joanne Murray.
30 meals were put together by our staff to put smiles on the faces of those living alone and feeling the uncertainty of the time. Thank you, Nancy, Cathy and Shannon. You have brought out the true meaning of Christmas throughout our community along with the 6 volunteers delivering and enjoying providing some cheer and a welcome greeting to each one.
We were also privileged to partner with a young man named Nathan Leduc, an 11-year-old student who wanted to fill his mother’s car with food for those who were without. We spread the news and the food kept coming to the extent that we were able to fill his basement with 92 boxes, 42 boxes of toilet paper and 24 boxes of paper towels along with $3,000.00 from Christopher Skeete and MNA Marie-Chantal Chassé. $1500.00 cash was also donated. Thank you to everyone who took the time to stop by and share what they had with many in the community.
Another young person we were very thankful to partner with was Summer Baie Wyeth, a grade 6 student who is collecting used books and selling them for $1.00 in order to help support another initiative of buying toys for children who have less. She even bought a doll house from her birthday money because she found out that there was a little girl who really wanted a doll house. MWCN awarded both Summer and Nathan a thank you Covid coin medal we purchased from the Royal Canadian Mint in honour of their community service during the pandemic.
Yes we are in the middle of a pandemic. However, I am so happy to be a part of a community that has come together to give and to bring joy to others despite the circumstances we are living.
Here I am typing this story and, in the background, I am listening to our coordinator, Nancy animating a Conversation Café with 7 seniors living alone. I hear the laughter from my desk. Some saying they have not laughed for months. On Zoom they are sharing and caring and laughing and discovered new hope in the process. One senior who had been finding this time extremely hard, said she was now ready to put up her Christmas tree and bake a rum cake.
We know it is hard for some and it has been going on for near 10 months. Many people out there are experiencing some sad situations however this could be an opportunity for us to help change someone’s life through one small gesture. Watch for an opportunity to reach out and show how much you care. This may be the beginning of forming a new tradition.
Our wish for you is that you will have a safe and magical Holiday Season.
Pauline Wiedow
Executive Director
www.mwcn.ca
