{"id":37301,"date":"2025-12-04T15:41:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=37301"},"modified":"2025-12-11T14:56:37","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T19:56:37","slug":"salvation-army-helps-community-make-merry-this-holiday-season-with-your-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/salvation-army-helps-community-make-merry-this-holiday-season-with-your-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Salvation Army helps community make merry this Holiday Season \u2013 with your support"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Salvation Army is set to help nearly 300 area families \u2013 and counting \u2013 make the Christmas and Holiday season bright, and are looking for the community\u2019s support in helping make dreams come true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salvation Army volunteers are hard at work transforming the former LCBO building on the southwest corner of Yonge Street and Brookland Avenue into a yuletide shopping experience for families in need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who are looking for a hand this holiday season need to register by this Friday, December 5, with distribution set to begin on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we start our distribution, which goes until December 20, it\u2019s going to include the two Saturdays on December 13 and 20 for those who are working and our volunteers will escort parents around our space so they know where everything is and they\u2019ll help them in choosing the toys for their children,\u201d says Angela Covert of the Salvation Army\u2019s Northridge Community Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s not just toys \u2013 games, books, and much more are also available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As are other supports to help families make ends meet in ways many people might take for granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Salvation Army volunteers are actively encouraging the community to donate gift cards, or even funds to aid the Salvation Army secure gift cards, to help address food security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople still want to give toys, which is very fair, but where I struggle is I\u2019m getting people walking in the door who come in and say they need winter gear or a voucher for the thrift store, or grocery cards,\u201d says Covert of the needs they are seeing at Northridge. \u201cI have a lot of people coming in now even for Esso gift cards because they\u2019re living in their car. December is a wonderful month and people are very generous, but I love it when people can see past December, so gift cards help with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI still have families who are coming in excited about toys, but I\u2019m starting to hear their stories of other struggles, of gaps in services that they\u2019re experiencing; if their children have autism, for example, they tell me these stories of real gaps they\u2019re seeing for themselves in how to properly support their children. Regardless of Christmastime being all joy and fun, it\u2019s not for everyone. If we can just relieve that stress right now with the toy piece, the food card piece, and encouraging them\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salvation Army Northridge provides a wide array of community programs, including food bank services and mental health programs. While those seeking out these services often express their concerns about being able to put food on their table and pay their rent, Covert says the gift program unfolding at Yonge and Brookland \u201cat least provides some relief from the concern of what they\u2019re going to do for their children\u2019s Christmas gifts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe already have existing clients who are using our services throughout the year \u2013 that would be our food bank, our Affordable Fresh Food Market, which is a partnership with York Region Food Network, our mental health services, children\u2019s programs like day camps, overnight camps, the Single Moms programs that we\u2019re running, those who come in for clothing throughout the year,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause we\u2019re serving them throughout the year, we\u2019re able to connect with them specifically at Christmastime for things like our toy program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supporting the Toy Program this year is the York Regional Police through their Holiday Heroes campaign and the Town of Aurora\u2019s Toys for Tickets program, which allows those who received parking infractions in November to pay off their tickets through toy donations. Reflective of current needs, the Toys for Tickets program is also accepting gift cards in lieu of the regular payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These gift cards not only help families put appropriate food on the table, but are also an opportunity to provide for teens who are often overlooked at this time of year as donations are frequently honed in on toys for younger ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to their own efforts, Covert notes they are also supporting gift programs for more than 20 other community organizations.<\/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":"

The Salvation Army is set to help nearly 300 area families \u2013 and counting \u2013 make the Christmas and Holiday season bright, and are looking for the community\u2019s support in helping make dreams come true. Salvation Army volunteers are hard at work transforming the former LCBO building on the southwest corner of Yonge Street and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":37302,"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-37301","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\/2025\/12\/2025-12-04-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9HD","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 12:08:29","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\/37301","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=37301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37303,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37301\/revisions\/37303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}