PG Council of Seniors launches hamper campaign

Oct 28, 2024 | 3:57 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The holiday hamper season used to look quite chaotic every year. Reams and reams of food, divided into boxes, bags and totes, destined for hundreds of seniors homes. Not anymore.

Even with no snow on the ground, the Council of Seniors has launched its Christmas hamper campaign.

“Well, I’m trying to get all the things organized for the hampers,” says Malhar Kendurkar, Executive Director for the Council. “You know, it’s better to organize or get everything organized before and then work in the chaos. And that, you know, usually pretty difficult when the things are really tight in the deadline. So seniors who are in need of Christmas hampers, they can come to the center at Senior Resource Center and pick up their application forms and they can drop it off here until November 29th.”

Across town at the Salvation Army, boxes are already being set aside in anticipation of a busy holiday season for demand.

“The fastest and easiest way for all of us together is go on to our website, which is SAPG .CA. I don’t think it’s open yet for registration, but you won’t be able to go on there, put your registration in there, and then there might be some contact emails back and forth,” says Roy Law, Director of Community Ministries.

And he has his personal focus for this particular campaign.

“What’s more important, I guess, is to be honest is for a child, right? Christmas is a child’s adventure. It’s a child’s theme for me. When I get my chocolates, I’m good.”

While slightly different than the old days, there is a strategy to getting the hampers organized.

“And all the groceries will be the same,” says Kendurkar. “The seniors will pick what kind of meat they want, and then we’ll have perishable food, produce, deli and whatnot.”

The Council of Seniors is looking for donations of cash and Save On Foods gift certificates specifically so folks get an equal amount of foodstuffs over the holiday season.

And speaking of the Salvation Army.

“This year we are storing all the groceries at the Salvation Army,” says Kendurkar. “We all delivering hampers from Salvation Army. That’s where we are storing the store, storing the Christmas hampers for this year, which was really kind of Salvation Army to donate that space to us.”

Law says the Salvation Army is not as reliant the gift cards as the Council of Seniors.

“Where we find with the gift cards and such is what we can do is them,” says Law. “We will use them to purchase at a larger volume. With the support of some of our suppliers and grocery stores in town, we can almost increase that purchasing power by 30 per cent.”

The Salvation Army anticipates upwards of four hundred applications, the Council of Seniors about 250 hampers and, those two with the other organizations that do Christmas hampers, the total expectation this year is a demand for 800-plus hampers locally.