Your donations at Christmas make a difference and bring joy
- The SJC Team
- Nov 8, 2019
- 2 min read
Christmas will soon be upon us and for some, rather than being a happy and joyful time, it is a time of stress and anxiety.
For this reason, once again at St John’s Care we will have a Christmas Present Room and will give out Christmas hampers.
This year we will be using a booking system so that we can ensure that everyone in need of help at Christmas receives it. Bookings will commence on Tuesday 26 November and the Christmas Present Room will open from Tuesday 10 to Thursday 19 December.
Your cash donations are so important as it can mean the difference between eating or not eating on Christmas Day. And although Christmas isn’t only about presents, it is so wonderful for people to receive a gift at Christmas.
A donation of:
$35 could provide a bag of groceries for one person.
$70 could mean a Christmas hamper for a family of four.
$100-150 donation could mean beautiful gifts for four children.
However, any monetary donation is priceless and it can help someone with very little.
If you are donating toys it would be wonderful to receive educational toys such as Lego and outdoor toys such as footballs, skipping ropes, softball kits etc.
As usual, corporate organisations will be volunteering their time to help in the Christmas Present Room and the hampers will be packed by the Ginninderra Sea Scouts, for which we are very grateful.
Just recently a client called Abby ( not her real name) came into the Centre. She was very upset and a volunteer met her and asked her if there was anything she could do to help.
Abby explained that she and her three children had left her family in Queensland because of a huge disagreement. She was now estranged from them and on her own. She was living with a friend in Canberra but knew that their hospitality would wear out.
Our Community Worker, Steph, contacted One Link to make sure that Abby and her family were on the housing list. A referral was made to Woden Community Services so that a case worker could be allocated to the family. Abby contacted Centrelink with support from the Community Worker and managed to get an emergency payment arranged.
Abby started crying because of the support she was receiving from SJC, and was so grateful. However, she was worried about how she was going to afford Christmas.
We told Abby about the Christmas Present Room and Christmas hampers. She was surprised and grateful at the generosity of the people of Canberra. It alleviated some of her stress to know that there was help there when she needed it.
Items required: dishwashing liquid, tinned fruit, sardines, sweet and savoury biscuits and toothpaste.
Kind regards,
SJC team
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