Christmas Cheer has hit an unfortunate first.
Officials running the annual campaign have been forced to turn people away this year.
The charity is giving hampers to feed 6,600 people this season, an increase of more than 600 hampers compared to 2010. With such a great need, chairwoman Linda Gambee said they implemented a 12 noon cutoff on Monday for those wanting to get a hamper. Those who didn’t make it in time won’t be getting a hamper this year.
“We’ve never had to turn anybody away before,” Gambee said Wednesday with tears welling. “It breaks my heart.”
“The need is so much higher than it’s ever been that we actually had to make a decision that to be able to give a hamper to everyone that had enough food in it for a week we had to do a cutoff.”
Gambee said more than 50 people have been turned away so far and the phone has been ringing off the hook with people still hoping to get a hamper.
“The phones are as busy as when we were taking the registrations and some people are pretty angry and we understand that, we apologize but we just can’t do anything about it,” she said. “We do the best we can with what we’ve got.”
Those who were turned away are directed to local food banks. Gambee said people also have a responsibility to make sure they register for a hamper on time.
The CLE Coliseum was a busy place Wednesday morning as 120 volunteers raced to fill hampers for those lucky enough to have registered.
Gambee said food donations are up this year, but Christmas Cheer is still $60,000 short of its $160,000 financial goal.
People can still donate money by bringing it to the Coliseum by 8 p.m. on Wednesday. Donations can also be made through Scotia Bank or Quality Market.
“Nickels, dimes, pennies, quarters, whatever you’d like to bring in,” Gambee said.
Food donations will also still be accepted.
“We put it right on the table and it goes right out,” Gambee said.
