Community Christmas organizers are thrilled with the success of last week's Toys Days, since enough toys were donated to provide each child receiving a Christmas hamper with a toy for Christmas!

Toy coordinator, Ingrid Penner says she is once again overwhelmed by this community's generosity. “The toy drive this year was a huge success. We want to thank each person who took the time to
Forklift delivering flats of canned vegetables for the Christmas Hampers at South East Helping Hands.

make sure every child would get a gift this Christmas. We have a toy for each child in each family receiving a hamper. It's amazing!”

Penner says they have enough toys and they have enough volunteers to complete all their tasks involved with packing and delivering hampers, but they do need monetary donations to be able to 
purchase all the food items in the hampers. “All the food in the hamper is purchased, so we still need some money to pay for all the food. We're putting turkeys, hams, bacon, farmer sausage, perishables, non-perishables – all of those items need to be purchased, so we're still collecting money to pay for that.”

Penner adds they have raised about three-quarters of the $140,000 which was their goal this year. She adds, if people would like to make a donation, they can do so online on the South East Helping Hands website, by clicking on the donate now button. Or cheques may be dropped off any time at the South East Helping Hands office on Main Street, which has a slot for envelopes on the door.