Tis the Season for Giving and Boy Does it Feel Good!
Barrhaven Weekender Dec. 9/04 & Kanata Kourier
Dec. 24/04
By Laurel E. Anderson
It’s that time of year again. The hustle and bustle of the holiday season is
nipping at our noses and it’s time to get busy, busy, busy. But sometimes the
hectic pace of the season makes us forget about those around us that may not be
as fortunate.
With so many causes and charities vying for our time and dollars, it’s hard to
decide what to give our money and time to. But one thing that is not under
dispute is that while the need exists all year, the demand escalates during the
holiday season as families and single parents barely making ends meet try to
find a little extra for the holidays. For many, this isn’t possible as there
isn’t enough to start with anyways.
And with that in mind, I went shopping the other day but it wasn’t typical
holiday shopping for family and friends. It was for people I didn’t even know.
The only thing I knew about them was that they were in need and instead of just
talking with those involved in the charity, I decided to participate and go
behind the scenes to see how it all comes together. I chose a local Ottawa
effort entitled Georgia’s Christmas Giving Project. Now in its sixth year, the
Giving Project is a Christmas season outreach program dedicated to the
empowerment of women and their children who are in great need because of their
circumstances.
“The hope that accompanies this cause is that it gives back to the children some
of their material needs and comforts and at the same time, allows their mothers
to be empowered to choose what is most beneficial for them” says founder Georgia
Morissette. This is a charity that relies one hundred percent on donations from
a network that started with friends and colleagues and continues to grow over
the years as the word gets out. Georgia, a former teacher, her sister Katie and
daughter-in-law Bobbi, started this project six years and $600 ago and that
amount has grown every year with last year’s collection raising several thousand
dollars.
The money collected is used to buy gift certificates from Zellers and Loblaws to
allow the mothers to buy what is necessary to meet their children’s needs.
Georgia shares with me that “over the past five years our donations have
assisted single mother families who have left behind all their belongings as
they hide from abusive situations in their former home settings.”
On the day that I accompanied Georgia and Kim, one of her energetic helpers, we
met at the Kanata Dollarama location where district manager Kelly Scott had
pledged a generous donation to the project. I asked Kelly what made him want to
support this cause and his answer was that “it’s a good cause whenever children
are in need.” Along with local store managers Kim Grant and Lena Dack, we were
led to the hat and mitt section where we had fun picking out lots of warm winter
gear for the families and after filling an entire cart with hats, mitts and
scarves, we headed to the sock section to stock up on wooly toe warmers.
And it was while counting (I was the official inventory counter) that it dawned
on me that everything we were buying was a necessity. There weren’t any
frivolous items being tossed into our cart. We were buying needed items and with
Georgia in command, we were focused. Her experience came through when she
insisted that the children’s mitts be water repellent or they wouldn’t last very
long. That’s a mom and a schoolteacher talking I thought to myself while
carrying the bags to the car.
I asked Georgia the obvious question. What made you pick children? She told me
that being a teacher for eighteen years made her very aware of the needs of a
lot of these children and their families. She shares with me the story that one
year, they received a late donation and all of the families and packages had
already been assigned and delivered but now she had this extra $1000.00 and she
wasn’t sure what to do. She wondered if she should go get some more families and
was contemplating this when she saw her sister-in-law and noticed that she
seemed sad and when she asked what was wrong, found out that the school where
she taught did not have enough money to keep the breakfast program going into
the new year. Georgia asked if $1000.00 would help and her sister-in-law said
yes it most certainly would.
Georgia smiles over at me and says, “the $1000.00 fit the need. It was meant to
be late.” I think Georgia has found her fit and now it’s up to the rest of us to
find ours this holiday season because as the saying goes, ‘tis the season for
giving.”