{"id":32235,"date":"2022-11-24T19:15:04","date_gmt":"2022-11-25T00:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32235"},"modified":"2022-12-02T11:00:39","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T16:00:39","slug":"holiday-helpers-will-help-families-get-the-essentials-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/holiday-helpers-will-help-families-get-the-essentials-this-season\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHoliday Helpers\u201d will help families get the essentials this season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Families who struggled to make ends meet last Christmas before inflation began to march upward are likely in an even tougher position as the holiday season approaches this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Needs in the community continue to grow and organizations like Neighbourhood Network are looking for ways to keep up with the demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neighbourhood Network\u2019s Holiday Gift Drive is now in full swing and receiving special emphasis this year is the Holiday Helper program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For $250, a Holiday Helper will provide the most urgently requested necessities for a local family in need, each of whom has been referred to the Aurora-based volunteer organization by partners and non-profits within the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNeeds are just growing and growing,\u201d says Neighbourhood Network\u2019s Tanya Dennis. \u201cHere, our goal is to help as many people as we can [but] this year our approach was a bit different. Our \u2018Helpers\u2019 are bags that are filled with necessities such as, but not limited to, laundry soap, liquid soap, some towels or cloths, personal hygiene items, toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, body wash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe reason we\u2019re taking this approach is because over the last few years the wish list that is coming in from our families have been necessities. At the beginning it was on such a smaller scale and it was for toys and different things like that, but due to the rise in food insecurities and the rising cost of anything, we took the approach that if we can create as many holiday helpers as we can, we\u2019re going to provide necessities \u2013 which is what people are asking for. Our goal is to distribute hopefully up to 100 Holiday Helpers and then we\u2019re also taking family wish lists and we\u2019re trying to offer those to families or individuals who have never received support from our holiday gift drive in the past. Those who have, we\u2019re hoping to offer them the Holiday Helper.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Dennis says it has been especially difficult to see mothers, for instance, simply ask for household items this year. It\u2019s an indication just how difficult the struggle is. The \u201cconversation\u201d has changed and \u201cso many families in our community are falling through the cracks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe never want to turn anyone away. The important piece in our holiday gift drive is individuals must be represented by a partner agency of ours, other not for profits or charities that are partnered with Neighbourhood Network because we do not have the capacity to vet these families and with numbers growing and growing it is becoming a very big job,\u201d she shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re so appreciative of all the support we\u2019ve had in the community and we look forward to another successful holiday gift drive. We\u2019ve become very lucky. It seems that every time we have a need come in we have the proper people in place who are just reaching out to all of a sudden support. It has worked out really well in the past, we\u2019re hopeful it will work out again this year, but we\u2019re trying to support more people than we ever had before, which is a challenge. We\u2019re optimistic we can make it happen and we\u2019re going to make the holidays happier times for lots of families in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on how to become involved in the Gift Drive, visit nnetwork.org.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Families who struggled to make ends meet last Christmas before inflation began to march upward are likely in an even tougher position as the holiday season approaches this year. Needs in the community continue to grow and organizations like Neighbourhood Network are looking for ways to keep up with the demand. Neighbourhood Network\u2019s Holiday Gift […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32236,"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-32235","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\/2022\/11\/2022-11-24-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8nV","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 14:34:01","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\/32235","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=32235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}