{"id":25401,"date":"2019-12-13T18:57:31","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T23:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25401"},"modified":"2019-12-16T20:38:29","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T01:38:29","slug":"gift-drive-overwhelmed-by-community-generosity-but-necessities-are-still-in-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/gift-drive-overwhelmed-by-community-generosity-but-necessities-are-still-in-need\/","title":{"rendered":"Gift drive overwhelmed by community generosity \u2013 but necessities are still in need"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Somewhere in this community, a young mother is struggling\nto feed her six-month-old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living on limited resources, she\u2019s been facing tough\ndecisions since she was told her baby had to go on an expensive formula for the\nnext six months, resulting in a food bill of more than $40 a day for the baby\nalone. As such, the mother has made the necessary adjustments to her family\u2019s\nbudget. She\u2019s cut back on anything that is not necessary and prioritized her\nbills, but that isn\u2019t enough to make ends meet at this time of year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter Neighbourhood Network\u2019s Holiday Gift Drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annual campaign is working with its myriad non-profit partners throughout Northern York Region to make the holidays brighter for local families in need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the campaign, partner organizations compile\nspecific requests from their clients, and Neighbourhood Network takes on the\nchallenge of collecting gifts, donations, and funds to make sure nobody is left\nbehind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With less than two weeks to go before the donation\ndeadline of December 20, Neighbourhood Network says they are overwhelmed by the\ncommunity\u2019s generosity this year, but notes there are still very simple\nrequests they need help filling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is one of the first years where, at this point, I\nhad more sponsors and people wanting to help and contribute to our gift drive\nfor people in need,\u201d Neighbourhood Network\u2019s Maggie Palmer told The Auroran on\nMonday morning. \u201cI would have to place people on hold and tell them, \u2018Please\nwait because I know there is going to be an urgent request coming in.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the start of the week, just about everyone who\nNeighbourhood Network committed to looking after \u2013 whether an individual,\nfamily, or even a non-profit organization \u2013 had picked up their donations and\nsome already have the community\u2019s contributions wrapped and around their\nChristmas trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt makes me happy because normally I am scrambling to find\nsponsors and waiting to receive more donations,\u201d Ms. Palmer continues, noting\nthe wish lists of nearly 45 families have been fulfilled so far. \u201cWe don\u2019t get\na profile for every family, but the ones we do, we get a breakdown, almost a\ntimeline, of how the family got to where they are and it doesn\u2019t take much. One\nbad accident kind of spirals. A lot of the times we find that food is the top\nof the list for everybody. The local food pantries do an incredible job and I\nknow they serve a lot of people \u2013 it is just that their doors aren\u2019t always\nopen to fit the schedule of the person in need. They fall through the cracks\nand when they fall though the cracks they typically come to an agency that we\nsupport or come to us through the Town because they know we can support.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the December 20 deadline approaches (that\u2019s the ideal,\nNeighbourhood Network will still accept donations through the morning of\nChristmas Eve), their biggest needs remain baby formula, diapers and wipes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor single parents, and there tends to be a lot of them\nout there \u2013 it\u2019s the infant and baby phase that people are struggling with,\u201d\nsays Ms. Palmer. \u201cUnfortunately, food pantries and agencies don\u2019t have a\nstockpile of these items. Winter gear for all ages is needed, right from\nnewborns to seniors. Gently used is welcome, but new is preferred. The faster\nwe get donations, the faster we can get them to people in need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on the Neighbourhood Network Holiday Gift Drive, including needs listed by partner organizations, and drop-off locations in Aurora, King and East Gwillimbury, visit nnetwork.org\/program\/holiday-gift-drive or call 905-726-3737. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somewhere in this community, a young mother is struggling to feed her six-month-old. Living on limited resources, she\u2019s been facing tough decisions since she was told her baby had to go on an expensive formula for the next six months, resulting in a food bill of more than $40 a day for the baby alone. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25394,"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-25401","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\/2019\/12\/2019-12-12-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6BH","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 09:07:38","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\/25401","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=25401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}