UPDATE November 27 –
We now have the full list of families in need (Halton Women’s Place, Milton Transitional Housing), in addition to the target number of seniors we hope to be ‘Secret Santa-ing’ this year!
For details on how to help, email gabriella@fredhelps.com – We will post a list below in the next couple of days!
UPDATE – November 23,Kick Off!
3rd year in a row — loving every minute of it! Here we go! Please bookmark this page for updates!
UPDATE December 9 –
Wrapping is DONE! Thanks to our volunteers and everyone who donated! Final tally is an incredible 84 gifts for seniors (over 4x last year’s total!), and a few families helped from Halton Women’s Place, Milton Transitional Housing, and Single Moms Fresh Start. Here’s what it looks like ready for delivery! THANKS EVERYONE!!
UPDATE December 5,-
WOW, fantastic!! We have exceeded our goal of 40 seniors already thanks to so many people! They will be thrilled when we come in with more than they had hoped! We are a little short on our families in need but so close that I know we’re going to make it – almost there.
Thank you everyone – we will have daily updates this week so stay tuned! 🙂
UPDATE November 28-
Donations are underway and we haven’t sent our communications out yet – WOW, this is fantastic!
We’re also gathering donations for Halton Women’s Place, Milton Transitional Housing, and Single Mom’s Fresh Start. For details on how to help, email marisa@fredhelps.com
UPDATE – November 21, Kick Off!
Thanks to a great first attempt at this last year, we’re back, and growing!
A little background — My Real Estate team here in Milton has a lot to be appreciative for – and we love to give back to the community in different ways whenever we can. During the holidays, there are many ways to help if you just ask around — last year we reached out to local contacts, and the Senior Care centre Allendale was the first that popped into my mind. Meanwhile, online feedback was fantastic! So many people had offered to help!
Spreading Christmas cheer is fun and easy, but finding specific people in need proved to be a little more challenging since we started this so late into the season last year.
Thanks to a few wonderful people — Rita Albin (Milton Woman of the Year and I totally understand why), Deacon Nina Page and Rev. Mark Curtis of Grace Anglican, and a few other key people, we managed to compile a list of people that could use a little extra cheer. During this exercise, we found that so many good people had already volunteered to help seniors, but that stocking stuffers with specific items would absolutely be appreciated. Also, once the word had spread, a few families and individuals were identified as well.
For 2016, we are going to try to double our efforts from last year, and touch more lives of people that could use a few smiles. We will be releasing more details in the coming days; in the meantime, please send an email to Marisa@fredhelps.com to ask how you can donate or help — when you’re acting local, a little indeed goes a LONG way!!
Scroll down for our notes on last year’s efforts – and thanks for reading!
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————————-2015 BLOG INFO IS BELOW – THE ORIGINAL SSFS Year —————————-
(HI THERE! If you’ve received this link from a friend or contact of yours, we don’t have all of the information here just to save space and we’re working hard at the logistics part now. If you would like to offer your help or donate a gift, please email marisa@fredhelps.com right away and we will send you a little history of what we’re doing, and add you to our list of elves!)
UPDATE December 4th 2015 –– A big Thanks!! I just wanted to post a huge thanks to J. Swadi of One Sweet Day and MAFE (Milton Area Female Entrepreneurs) – Their response had been phenomenal and continues to pour in – thank you, MAFE!
Update December 2nd 2015– We’ve Expanded!! With the notification from Allendale that their Gift-giving program was a success, they have requested that we add stocking stuffers for them – details below (we would like to create 20 small packages of stocking stuffers that we can add… AND Thanks to a couple of contacts, Grace Anglican church has brought to our attention a few other people (of all ages) that are really in need of some Christmas Cheer, either dealing with very difficult medical, personal, or mental health issues, most living below the poverty line or on some form of disability.
If you would like to volunteer to help us out (with a small gift purchase, or your time to help wrap), please let us know by emailing clientcare@fredhelps.com or marisa@fredhelps.com right away and we will update the chart below 🙂 Thanks so much for all of the support so far!
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November 21, 2015
published by: Fred DeCarolis
Just a quick background for those of you not involved in the discussion on the Hawthorne Villager forums — One of the message board members posted about a Be A Santa To A Senior program, and I loved the idea. I wanted to pitch in, but I noticed that there was no local Milton affiliate for the existing program! My first instinct was to try to replicate their program but I was worried it might be a little too late.
We reached out to local contacts, and the Senior Care centre called Allendale was the first that popped into my mind.
Meanwhile, online feedback was fantastic! So many people have offered to help!
…the problem became clear – FINDING people that needed a little extra help over the holidays ( we know they’re out there!). Spreading Christmas cheer is fun and easy, but finding specific people in need proved to be a little more challenging since we started this so late.
Thanks to a few wonderful people — Rita Albin (Milton Woman of the Year and I totally understand why), Deacon Nina Page and Rev. Mark Curtis of Grace Anglican, and a few other key people, we managed to compile a list. During this exercise, we found that so many good people had already volunteered to help seniors, but that stocking stuffers with specific items would absolutely be appreciated. Also, once the word had spread, a few families and individuals were identified as well – why not add them too!
— Since we had such a great response, we will be starting this much earlier next year, to streamline the process a little bit, and get just as personal with the gifts for specific seniors, similar to the kids and families identified above. For this year, we can use all the help we can get, even if it is just keeping this in the back of your mind next time you’re out shopping.
Everyone, seriously, THANK YOU!!