Doug Bamford receives a number of gifts from Lindsay Wilson and her kids Gage, Isla and Grayson during a Santa for Seniors stop at St. Joe's last year. The Santa for Seniors group helped more than 400 Hatters last Christmas season.--NEWS PHOTO MO CRANKER
mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@mocranker
It’s safe to say that Santa For Seniors is needed more than ever this year.
In previous years, before the COVID-19 pandemic, many seniors spent time around the Holidays alone.
Many seniors in the city have now spent the majority of 2020 isolated and unable to see their loved ones.
Santa for Seniors organizer Erin Turcotte says she thought about shutting the program down for the year and bringing it back next, but knew it had to happen this year.
“I am a nurse and I work with seniors every day – I have seen how hard this year has been on them,” she said. “This year has hit people really, really hard and I’m hoping we can make this a good year for them.”
Santa for Seniors operates through donations, with people showing up to a designated Santa Stop, taking a tag and buying the gifts on that tag. Once purchased, people drop unwrapped gifts back under the tree. The final date for donations is Dec. 16.
Santa Stops are located at both Bank of Montreal locations, Shoppers in the mall, Fox Safety and RE/MAX Medalta.
Santa for Seniors offers personalized tags for specific people with specific gifts people can shop for. There are also generic tags that people can buy that will be distributed to people at the homes.
“Gifts for generic tags can be things like comfort items,” she said. “Lap blankets, teddy bears and things like toiletries are always really welcome.
“More often than not, a Christmas card with a nice message in it will be the thing that makes the recipient smile.
“Knowing that someone took the time to buy the card and write a message goes a long way.”
The organization is working to get roughly 350 seniors a gift this year. Turcotte says there are slight modifications to how things will work this winter.
“The biggest difference is that we cannot have volunteers to wrap and hand out the gifts,” she said. “We’ve had a couple facilities opt out of getting gifts delivered and we totally understand that.”
If people are unable to donate gifts, Turcotte says the organization is always in need of gift bags and extra wrapping paper people may have laying around.
Santa for Seniors usually had big drop-off events where volunteers would hand out gifts to residents at long-term-care facilities, but will not this year. Gifts will be dropped off at the homes and given out by staff.
