Loughborough Christmas and Emergency Committee

Wilma Kenny | Jan 10, 2018

Working with a core board of five: Sue Clinton, Bev McNeill, Jim Kelly, Katie Koopman, and Coleen Ure McCulla-Grant (long-time member Peter Stewart’s in England this year) this small group of very well-organized volunteers helps connect those in our community who have plenty with those who need a helping hand, by raising funds and donations to create generous Christmas baskets for seventy South Frontenac families and individuals. Throughout the rest of the year, as the Loughborough Christmas and Emergency Committee, they help provide relief to local families in times of distress.

The Christmas ‘baskets’ include boxes of food, age-appropriate books for children, toys and bright hand-knitted mitts, scarves and toques. “We live in an incredibly generous community,” says Clinton. The last week before packing, shoppers are dispatched and on packing-day a small well-organized auxilary army of volunteers and family members come to help. Grace Hall is crammed with rows of tables and numbered boxes, van-loads of food arrive, are carried in, and somehow the whole huge task of filling the boxes is accomplished in a few hours. Fresh produce is added on the morning of pick-up and delivery. To respect confidentiality, only the core group is present when the boxes are collected or delivered.