Update on Christmas for Kids - 2006
submitted by Myrlene Boken - St. Peter's Anglican Church

The Christmas for Kids programme had another successful year making sure that all of the children in south Innisfil, primarily in the Lefroy, Belle Ewart and Alcona Beach area experienced the magic of Christmas. This year we helped 54 children in 24 families, a total of 78 people. The last few days before Christmas, we had several calls for help and thankfully we were able to assist everyone.

The success of the programme is that it involves the entire community; the schools, churches and community groups. Killarney Beach and Innisfil Central public schools provided the toys and food from their food and toy drives. Our thanks go out to Cole Vardy, Kyle Drouillard and Candice Griffith for spear heading the food and toy drive at Innisfil Central Public School. This year we were helped by St. Francis of Assisi, and Nantyr Shores, both schools donated hundreds of pounds of food for the programme.

We are thankful to the members of St. Peter's Anglican Church and the Churchill and Gilford United Churches. In particular our thanks go out to Bev Kell, Paula Murphy and Ann Kell. A special thank you also goes out to the Churchill/ Gilford Youth Group for their support.

The members of all of the churches purchase gifts and gift certificates, knit hats and mitts, donate money, wrap gifts and help as needed. This year we also received a donation from the Lefroy United Church UCW.

This year we had considerable support from the community.

The Lefroy Lions Club made a generous donation and thanks to Joan Thomas our ambassador in the community who helped spread the word and collected donations from individuals in the community.

We would like to thank Margaret McCleary and Darlene Braybrook for making 60 bags of candies and treats for the children's stockings and P and H Foods for the donation of turkeys for each family.

Each family received a $50.00 certificate for Wal-Mart, a food certificate for IGA, a turkey, gifts for each child, stocking stuffers and two large boxes of food.

Thank you to everyone for making this another successful year.