THUNDER BAY – St. Joseph’s Foundation is looking for a Thunder Bay to show its generosity once again to help brighten Christmas for several hundred residents in care.
The organization on Wednesday launched its third annual Be Their Secret Santa campaign, which aims to collect enough money to buy gifts for up to 300 people, many of whom are alone during the holiday season.
Everyone deserves to have a merry Christmas, said volunteer Karin Sitko, adding the program is one way to help make it happen.
“We are asking for monetary donations and/or items we can put together in gift baskets and gifts for the seniors who don’t have someone at Christmas,” Sitko said.
“This is really important to our community because there are a lot of seniors here in Thunder Bay who don’t have family close by and don’t have something to open on Christmas morning. So we feel it’s very valuable to give back to the seniors of our community.”
The campaign launched in 2015, with slightly more than six weeks to put it together. Organizers were still able to collect enough money and gift items to provide presents for 130 residents. Last year they doubled their total and this year they’re striving for even more.
St. Joseph’s Foundation director Katrina O’Neill, who welcomed an early Santa Claus visit at Wednesday morning’s pancake breakfast launch, called it a wonderful program that does a lot to alleviate loneliness and put a smile on seniors’ faces.
She added they’ve got the program down pat after two initial tries.
“As this is our third year we’ve refined things a bit and we’ve realized what they want is a nice set of pyjamas and maybe some hat and mitts,” O’Neill said. “We give them a Christmas stocking filled with all sorts of goodies and they’re able to enjoy that for Christmas morning.”
The help out the campaign, the public can make a cash donation to the St. Joseph’s Foundation, text CHAIR to 45678 or drop off an unwrapped item from a list provided at www.sjftb.net/santa. Foundation volunteers will be on site at Superstore on Nov. 22 collecting pyjama donations between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.
