{"id":35444,"date":"2024-11-21T17:08:46","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T22:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=35444"},"modified":"2024-11-21T17:08:48","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T22:08:48","slug":"giving-store-helps-you-cross-items-of-holiday-shopping-list-benefit-community-at-same-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/giving-store-helps-you-cross-items-of-holiday-shopping-list-benefit-community-at-same-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving Store helps you cross items of Holiday shopping list, benefit community at same time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Finding the perfect gift for someone on your holiday shopping list can be stressful at the best of times \u2013 but Oakridge\u2019s Fashions has stepped up to take away some of the guesswork, while helping the community at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday night, Oakridge\u2019s Fashions, the popular boutique located in Aurora\u2019s historic downtown core, formally turned on the lights of their in-store Christmas Tree, heralding the arrival and opening of their now-traditional Giving Shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Located within their store on Yonge Street, just south of Wellington, the Giving Shop offers gift ideas for just about everyone on your list \u2013 and proceeds from each sale will benefit Southlake Regional Health Centre\u2019s Emergency Care, the Alzheimer Society of York Region, Aurora Food Pantry, CHATS (Community & Home Assistance to Seniors), the Canadian Federation of University Women Aurora-Newmarket\u2019s scholarship programs, and Marquee Theatrical Productions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Giving Shop began [during the pandemic] one day after we learned the store was going to be closed once again for the holiday season and we bought a tree and put it up in the store to cheer ourselves up,\u201d says Oakridge\u2019s owner Deb Clark, at the tree lighting event, where she was joined by Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill MP Leah Taylor Roy, Mayor Tom Mrakas, and Councillors Rachel Gilliland and Ron Weese. \u201cWe put some little ornaments on it, some little mice, and the very next day I got a call from Sandra Seepaul at the Aurora Food Pantry saying they were in need because so many people were out of work. We decided to sell the little mice and to give the proceeds to the Aurora Food Pantry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs soon as our very loyal customer base learned that, we stripped the tree nine times and ran out of mice. I love that sometimes out of very hard times is when goodness can begin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Giving Shop does indeed offer something for everyone, young ones will particularly enjoy the third installment of a series of children\u2019s books penned by Clark just for the Giving Shop, tales inspired by the mice that started it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStarting three years ago, I put pen to paper and tried to being something to life in a little children\u2019s book,\u201d Clark said. \u201cThey always meet in a factory in Montreal where they are made as little ornaments and there is always some adventure they get into, with a sweet and endearing story about how they overcome their challenges to come to a happy end and a merry Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis year, the story is about four little characters who meet in the shipping bin; they get separated in the shipping room and two of them go to \u2018Harrings\u2019 of London, don\u2019t you know, and two of them come to Oakridge\u2019s of Canada. It\u2019s about how all they really want for Christmas is to find each other again \u2013 and, of course, Santa always makes that happen. He also helps them understand that sometimes friends cannot always live in the same place, but they can nevertheless stay in touch and be friends forever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking over this year\u2019s community partners, many of which were represented at last week\u2019s reception, Clark shared that she tries to make sure money goes to organizations she believes to be among the \u201cpillars\u201d of the Aurora community \u2013 benefiting healthcare, senior care, and providing opportunities for students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really felt the Alzheimer Society of York Region was doing an important job with something that is that is starting to affect more and more people, not just the generation I am in now, the Baby Boomers, who are even finding a spouse being diagnosed, but they\u2019re also seeing an elder relative, perhaps a mum or a dad afflicted. The work that they do supports not just the person who is diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s, but the caregivers. That\u2019s the real social\u2026that I think they\u2019re doing so well and we want to help them do that. CHATS is another organization not new to all of us, but we certainly are all aware of what CHATS is and what they do, but I think of the demographics and I think about the aging Boomers and their aging seniors and I thought this year they belonged in the mix for that reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will always support the food shortage, we will always look at education, so we brought back for a second year the Canadian Federation of University Women and their scholarship program. We will always look to support youth in some way and culture, so that\u2019s where Marquee Theatrical Productions comes in. Every few years we switch up the beneficiaries in order to give everyone a chance to participate and, quite frankly, for Oakridge\u2019s to get an opportunity to learn more about the needs that are out there for other agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTheir spend (at the Giving Shop) is doing two things at once: it\u2019s giving a gift and the gift is giving back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Finding the perfect gift for someone on your holiday shopping list can be stressful at the best of times \u2013 but Oakridge\u2019s Fashions has stepped up to take away some of the guesswork, while helping the community at the same time. On Wednesday night, Oakridge\u2019s Fashions, the popular boutique located in Aurora\u2019s historic downtown core, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35444","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\/2024\/11\/2024-11-21-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9dG","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 11:49:08","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\/35444","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=35444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35446,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35444\/revisions\/35446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}