Groups in West Prince working together to fill Christmas hampers

Six organizations in West Prince are teaming up this year to make the holiday season brighter for their neighbours.

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"It's a bit of a new venture based on something that's been going on for a while," said Corina Bolo of the West Prince Christmas Hampers Group, which is a sub-committee of the West Prince Caring Cupboard.

"There's always been a number of different groups up west here who have distributed Christmas hampers this time of year."

Jay's Sleigh will visit West Prince twice as part of the 2017 Feed a Family campaign.

Representatives in West Prince got together in February to come up with a plan to improve co-ordination of hampers in the region.

"It's been very positive right from our first meeting where everybody was thrilled to get together and just compare notes and find out who is doing what," Bolo said.

"Because a lot of times you don't know what's going on almost in your backyard."

Six locations

There are now six main groups doing official hamper distributions this year.

"There's still lots of other smaller things happening in individual churches or groups where people are reaching out to families," Bolo said.

"But if a family is requesting or an individual is requesting a little bit of help at Christmas we have six groups that are going to be fulfilling those needs."

They are distributed geographically with two each in Tignish, Alberton-Elmsdaleand O'Leary.

"That will help with transportation and delivery, it will save people some travel, nobody needs to be going down to Summerside to get a basket," Bolo said, adding they are working closely with Salvation Army in Summerside.

"We just want to make sure that nobody gets missed."

'Nothing but positive'

The Salvation Army in Summerside will refer anyone from West Prince to the closest group.

Reaction has been positive, Bolo said, especially from organizations that work with families and individuals who may be looking for a hamper, such as Kids West.

"They were thrilled to have some concrete information about where they could send families that they knew needed some help," Bolo said.

"Same for social services, family violence prevention is on board, we have youth workers, it's been nothing but positive from those folks because they know where they can send people."

Also new this year, all four grocery stores in the area will be collecting turkeys.

"That's going to make it easier for people to donate because people in West Prince are so generous," Bolo said.

"That's where it all starts is with individudal dropping off a turkey or two or some fixings to go with the turkey meal and we appreciate that support."

Bolo predicts her group will hand out "well over" 200 turkeys this year.

'Anticipating slight rise'

"We know where it's been the last couple of the years and we're anticipating a slight rise," Bolo said.

"It could be a single-parent family, or a family that's working but struggling at this time of year when oil bills start coming in."

The group is thankful for annual donations from the local fishermen's associations and schools, including Westisle High School.

"Sometimes a family that needed some help one year is there another year bringing in a turkey or some food or a cash donation to help because they know what it's like to be on the receiving end."

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