By Mike Renzella
The Haldimand Press
HALDIMAND—Santa to a Senior – a popular program run by a team of dedicated volunteers that pairs generous local residents with seniors at long-term care homes to deliver personalized gifts – is preparing to yet again spread ample holiday cheer to the community this Christmas.
The program began in 2020 when local seniors living in LTC-homes were largely unable to see their families due to extensive pandemic restrictions and ongoing social isolation protocols. Having learned there was no existing program for getting gifts to seniors, resident Sarah Hague began reaching out to area seniors homes and community members to launch such a project.
Rapidly, many residents joined Hague’s ranks and a number of local homes agreed to participate. By the time Christmas 2020 rolled around, they had collected over 400 gifts to deliver throughout Haldimand. For the 2021 edition, they took things a step further, collecting gift ‘wish list’ ideas and pairing participants with individual seniors to deliver personalized gifts.
Now three years in, the program is run by Hague, community paramedic Nicole Selby, Laurel Werbeski, and Melissa Burgess, with over 500 donating members, many of whom also take time to help with driving, collecting, and delivering the gifts.
The organizing team spoke with The Press about how things are shaping up so far this year, stating, “We got an early start after last year’s event and have been building up to this year’s event all along. But no matter how much you put in ahead of time there is always a rush at the end to get all the recipient information, the recipients matched with their donors, and the gifts delivered.”
This year, the team has launched santatoasenior.ca, a website designed to help distribute information and keep things organized.
“The first year we started from a simple social media post and somehow we managed to make all the magic happen in just two short weeks. Once we started getting personalized information about our recipients that process became much more complicated and required the cooperation of the staff, family, and friends who care for them to send in their completed information forms months in advance.”
Next, the team painstakingly matches donors to recipients: “Sometimes we get requests to have certain genders, or even certain recipients, and lots of questions about the recipient they receive. So, you can imagine that this all becomes much more complicated and time consuming.”
She continued, “It is very helpful when we receive pertinent details. For instance, a recipient may have an interest in a certain type of music, but we may not be told if it should be on CD or something else. These are details we hope to improve on for next year.”
The team is hoping someone with website expertise might be interested in helping them further develop their online capabilities and create a system where donors can see recipients on the site and choose one based on provided information.
Santa to a Senior is currently working with six different programs and facilities throughout Haldimand and Six Nations: “We are still getting additions to that daily and expect those numbers to grow.”
Many of the program’s participants are signing up for multiple gifts, and others are donating money to help with the purchase of additional gifts.
“The community is always ready to jump in and help in any way we need. The hardest part is the waiting as everyone is so excited to get shopping for their recipient,” said the group, noting there are several ways people can get involved, including signing up as a ‘Santa’ to purchase a gift, donating money to help purchase gifts, or by volunteering their time to sort gifts, help purchase items, or help with deliveries.
They described how it feels to see the program take roots and become a new local annual holiday tradition: “It feels amazing to not only do something heartwarming and meaningful for the recipients, but also to be a part of something bigger that unites our communities and showcases the true goodness of humanity.”
Those taking part can drop off their gifts between December 9-15 at Home Hardware locations in Caledonia and Hagersville, with the team still looking for suitable donation sites in Dunnville and Cayuga. They encourage participants to keep an eye on the ‘Announcements’ page on their website for more information as the delivery date draws closer.
“We are so grateful for the generosity and support of the communities to make this all possible. We are humbled and honoured to be leading this campaign and it warms our hearts to see the joy it brings to so many on both the giving and receiving sides.”
