City rolled up its sleeves
Thank you Campbell River for making the 39th Community Christmas Hamper Fund organized by the Knights of Columbus a gratifying success.
As has been the case time and time again, the residents of Campbell River stood tall, rolled up their sleeves and contributed with donations of food, toys, money and their time. This community support enabled the fund to achieve its goal of delivering a hamper to all who had applied.
The support that the fund received was from across the entire spectrum of the community. Many businesses, clubs, organizations, churches, schools and individuals each played an important role in carrying the effort to a satisfying end. The old adage that “giving is better than receiving” was re-discovered anew by many as their efforts made their celebration of Christmas more complete.
The weather on delivery day deteriorated but that did not deter many volunteers from showing up to build the hampers and others to deliver them. The Coast Discovery Inn generously donated a huge cauldron of vegetable-beef soup that helped keep anyone who had a bowl nice and warm and in good spirits.
Not only was there a great response from the community on the day when the hampers were built and delivered, it was also present in the weeks leading up to the event. Special guests to the depot during this time included two different groups of daycare children, each on separate days, arriving at the toy depot to entertain the volunteers with their Christmas songs. A group of home-schooled children visited to tour the food and toy depots and while they were there asked some insightful and unprompted questions about how the fund operated on delivery day. A class of nine year old children from École des Deux Mondes walked in the pouring rain from their school to the depot to help bag some of the almost 8,000 oranges, only to find on their arrival that the oranges were late in being delivered. They then returned to their school, again in the pouring rain. To them all we can say is nous sommes sincèrement désolés et vous prions d’accepter nos excuses. In fact, our city’s schools, played a huge role. Their collection of non-perishable food items and toys was overwhelming and filled many hampers.
The Knights would like to thank the management of the Tyee Plaza for the use of the two centrally located and spacious sites for our depots. We also thank our neighbors in the plaza for their patience with the fund as it was the cause of increased pedestrian and vehicle traffic around their locations. A special thank you goes to our two local newspapers for keeping the efforts of the fund in the public’s eye by publishing many pictures and articles. When, early on, the fund was struggling, some timely writing by Kristen and Sian was instrumental in getting us on our way.
Finally, a heartfelt thank you from the Knights of Columbus, on behalf of the hamper recipients, to all of Campbell River for demonstrating once more its social conscience and big heart.
For those interested in statistics, there were 1,207 hampers built and delivered to 3,523 people, 1,729 females and 1,794 males. Included in this number were 897 families and 310 singles.
Recipients ages ranged from 1 month to 101 years, 207 seniors ages 65 and older and 1255 children ages 16 and under.
Kevin Gearey
Knights of Columbus
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