Christmas campaign helping families in need

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on November 29, 2023.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

The YWCA Lethbridge and District’s Stockings of Hope Christmas Campaign is in full swing and ready to help women in need and their families celebrate Christmas.
Director of external relations, Cat Champagne says the campaign will help women and children who are either using YWCA programs or who have used them within the last year.
“Our annual Christmas campaign; it’s the way that we like to give back to our clients through the community each year,” says Champagne.
She says the clients provide a list that includes three items they need and one item they want, so they can have a little something extra for their Christmas.
“Those lists are then put on our website and the community at large is able to select those stockings, they shop for the items, they bring back the unwrapped items to us and then we either wrap them here as a team, or we allow moms to wrap them if they are looking to give those gifts to their kids.”
Champagne says the campaign asks members of the community to purchase all the items in one stocking but they have done something a little different this year.
“On average, it’s about $100 per person and we understand that with today’s economic climate that can be tough for people to adopt a family of four and be able to contribute to that, so we just ask to pick what’s in their means.”
As well, on the stockings of hope website there is a list of items that are more general for people who want to contribute to the program itself.
“Self-care items, winter-wear items, general gift certificates, there’s a whole list on there, so if someone just wanted to contribute $25 or $50 to the program but doesn’t want to commit to a full stocking they can just drop those items and then we can supplement those into stockings that maybe don’t get picked up by the community,” says Champagne.
She says since there is no guarantee that all stockings will be picked by someone in the community to be filled, they are also receiving monetary donations.
“We use those monetary funds to buy for the stockings that don’t get adopted by the community.”
The campaign will collect stocking items until Dec. 18 at the YWCA.

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