P.E.I. woman gives personalized gift bags to soup kitchen patrons

When Susan Keizer goes shopping, she really goes shopping.

Not only does she have 100 people to buy clothes for, she also has to try to get the exact sizes for each person.

For almost a decade, Keizer of Stratford, P.E.I., has been filling gift bags for the men and women who regularly use the soup kitchen at theUpper Room Hospitality Ministry in Charlottetown.

"They get pretty anxious near Christmas. They like the bags so much, their anxiety is building a little. So they're like, 'When am I bringing them?'" she said.

'My mom always reached out to other people'

The idea to make personalized gift bags came to her a few years ago, after she noticed someone was making up shoeboxes and filling them up with exactly the same items.

Keizer found that to be a bit impersonal.

"You get something that didn't fit or didn't suit, that really didn't mean anything. "

Keizer puts together the 100 gift bags in her basement, mostly on her own.

She said helping people in need comes from her own childhood.

"We were a single-parent family but my mom always reached out to other people and we were on social services at one point, so maybe that's where I come from," she said.

'Make it more personal'

"I have sort of like a factory. and everything is lined up and labels are on each bag, then you drop everything in."

Keizer explained how she knows what to buy for each person.

"Well, they fill out a form, so they tell me their age and what sizes they take in tops and jeans and underwear and pyjamas. That way when I make the bag, whatever I have I can put into it and make it more personal."

10 pairs of jeans at a time

People and organizations donate money to help Keizer with her shopping. And then off she goes to the stores with her list of one hundred names, often buying ten pairs of jeans at a time.

"So when I make up a bag, my idea is, if I opened that bag, how would I feel? Would I be excited? Would I feel that somebody really cared about me? And it's always new [clothes], never second hand."

Keizer has often volunteered in the soup kitchen, so she knows many of the people who come in regularly.

"I haven't been in a lot this year, but I do know most of the names when I see them on the form, 'So-and-so likes that colour, and so-and-so only wants shampoo,' so over the years you kind of get to know them."

'I want the bags to be the best they can be'

On Christmas Day, Keizer hands out the gift bags at the soup kitchen.

"That's the fun part, I get to see all the excitement. I want the bags to be the best they can be, so the people there know they're cared about," said Keizer

"I get more from doing it than they do receiving it, because the love they give me is just incredible."

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