{"id":19431,"date":"2017-12-20T14:35:27","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T19:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19431"},"modified":"2017-12-20T14:35:27","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T19:35:27","slug":"thousands-of-christmas-cards-collected-for-soldiers-amid-a-call-for-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/thousands-of-christmas-cards-collected-for-soldiers-amid-a-call-for-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of Christmas cards collected for soldiers \u2013 amid a call for change"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each card put a smile on Dianne Harrison\u2019s face.
\nThe Aurora resident has been busily distributing and collecting Christmas Cards for people across southern Ontario \u2013 and beyond \u2013 to fill out and send to men and women serving in the Canadian Armed Forces since the beginning of this fall.
\nWith an initial goal of 3,000 cards this year, Ms. Harrison collected a whopping 4,737.
\nThat\u2019s a lot of work for the smiling muscles \u2013 but that smile turned into disappointment as the 2017 Christmas Card program came to a close this year when she learned many others looking to write to soldiers this Christmas were no longer able to do so free of charge.
\nWhile Ms. Harrison\u2019s Christmas Card Initiative was able to get out in the post thanks to the Royal Canadian Legion, slightly to late to ensure delivery to the soldiers by Christmas due to some technical transit wrangling, she says the opportunity to write should be available year-round.
\n \u201cWhy, as citizens, can\u2019t we do this?\u201d she questions. \u201cWe care for our military too, and their families. It shouldn\u2019t be just at Christmas that we tell them we\u2019re thinking about them. Their families give up so much for them and they give up so much for their families and our country. I believe there should be a change in legislation, there needs to be a big change.\u201d
\nThis is a view supported by the Royal Canadian Legion
\n \u201cI was in dialogue with the Department of National Defence a month and a half ago and they basically said [their policy] had changed recently,\u201d said Ken White, President of the Aurora Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. \u201cFamily to family members are good to go, but non-family members to the military have to pay. I said, \u2018Look, if it is about the money, we\u2019ll pay for it, don\u2019t worry about that,\u2019 but I said that it seems to be a little slummish.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to try and get it changed and I am certainly going to recommend it when we talk to the base commander, but I think what we need to do is start sending these cards out earlier. If we can get on it earlier in the season, there will be lots of time to get there before December 25.\u201d
\nIt doesn\u2019t, however, take much time for the smile to return to Ms. Harrison\u2019s face. Although the majority of the Christmas Cards won\u2019t arrive to various places Canadian soldiers are serving around the world until New Year\u2019s, or just after, she is buoyed by the enthusiasm which greeted this season\u2019s card collection.
\n\u201cWe have a lot of excitement going on and people are really eager to take part because they know these cards mean so much to the military,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen people, especially kids, hear back from the soldiers, it builds real momentum. It is sad they won\u2019t receive their cards by Christmas because I know those who are not at home are feeling a loss not being with their families and wondering if we really do care about them here. I feel bad they don\u2019t know there are all these cards just waiting for them, full of love, saying that we care about them.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Each card put a smile on Dianne Harrison\u2019s face. The Aurora resident has been busily distributing and collecting Christmas Cards for people across southern Ontario \u2013 and beyond \u2013 to fill out and send to men and women serving in the Canadian Armed Forces since the beginning of this fall. With an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/2017-12-21-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-53p","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 06:05:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}