Knights of Columbus deliver 61 Christmas hampers
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It's not a race to fill the Knights of Columbus food hampers. But once they get rolling, volunteers from the Knights, St. Mary's Catholic Women's League and their families do it quickly. They had it down to a science Saturday, Dec. 17, when a total of 61 Christmas hampers - cardboard boxes - were filled at the Father Langan Parish Centre to be delivered to later that day to Tillsonburg and area families.
"It's always a little bit of a shaky start until you team up with somebody and you get a rhythm going," said Norbert Vanhooren, Deputy Grand Knight of Council 3212. "It's also from years of practice."
The Knights have been sponsoring food hampers for nearly 30 years.
"It's a fun morning," said Vanhooren.
Food items include soup, Jello, pasta, rice, cake mixes and frosting, and cereal - whatever they receive in donations, plus food staples they buy with money donated to The Giving Tree at St. Mary's RC Church, and from the Knights of Columbus who make sure each hamper is filled.
"A lot of the money comes from our annual bingo," said Vanhooren.
"We shop to make sure there's enough to fill each box - to put one in each box, minimum. Some of the boxes are bigger. They might have eight people in their family, so they might get double. If you look down here, some might have six or eight on the box - that's for bigger families."
Each hamper also receive a voucher for "ham, turkey, goose, whatever" to be picked up at a local grocery store.
"That's part of the application - where they shop. We used to give the turkeys and hams out here, but it got unwieldy. So we do it this way and they can get their own."
Planning for the hamper program begins in October. The Knights also meet with The Salvation Army, comparing notes to avoid delivering hampers to the same family.
"We get cheques and unwrapped gifts for children or adults, from The Giving Tree. We have The Giving Tree over at the (St. Mary's) church every week during advent. That's where the monetary gifts come in, and we use the money from that to shop for the hampers.
"All of the toys and gifts we collect are combined with The Salvation Army's at their depot. The people who come here, we give them a time slot so they can go over there to 'shop' for their kids. And of course, it's free to them."
Food items also come from the schools.
"They do their collections and we bring in a bunch of stuff from them. And we shop - that's what we're delivering today."
Some people pick up their hampers between 12-2 p.m., and drivers are lined up to deliver hampers in the afternoon.
"This year we're doing a total of 61 (hampers), which is down from other years," Vanhooren noted.
"We also work in conjunction with St. Vincent de Paul, who have the Friendship Dinner. We are supplying St. Vincent de Paul with some hampers for the people who couldn't make it here, and that's included in the 61 we are doing.
"We don't do this for the recognition," Vanhooren summed up. "We do it to help people. That's the only reason all these people are here.
"The pay, it's fantastic, it's in here," he said, tapping his chest.