Santa Claus Fund receives $15K grant from Community Foundation of Southeastern Alberta

By RYAN MCCRACKEN on August 22, 2020.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken

Even Santa needs a gift from time to time.

The Medicine Hat News Santa Claus Fund got a much-needed boost last week in the form of a $15,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Southeastern Alberta. Santa Claus Fund executive director Deanna Doerksen says the entirety of the grant will go toward providing families with Christmas dinners through the grocery voucher program.

“We’re just very thankful for the Community Foundation’s support,” said Doerksen. “Every family that qualifies (for the grocery voucher program) will receive a voucher, and the amount they get depends on the amount of people in their family. They’re able to use that voucher to purchase a Christmas meal locally.”

Doerksen added the COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on fundraising this year and forced the annual toy run to transition into a virtual format. Those challenges are made even greater when factoring in that the Santa Claus Fund will likely be serving more families than usual as a result of the pandemic.

“We’re expecting that donations will be down and usage will be up, so the number of families requiring our services, we’re anticipating, will be significantly up because of COVID and our donations perhaps down,” said Doerksen. “Our fundraising efforts have not stopped completely, but obviously things are looking a lot different for fundraising in 2020 and 2021.”

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