2024 Christmas Senior Care Packages Program
NeighbourLink Summerland is thrilled to be planning our 4th annual Christmas Senior Care Packages Program!
This program fills gift bags with practical items and yummy holiday treats. Then our team of ‘elves’ delivers the gift bags to lonely and isolated seniors right before Christmas…and weather permitting, they may even sing a Christmas carol!
This program started in 2021 when NeighbourLink heard from many of our clients that isolation due to COVID was causing depression, anxiety, sadness, and loneliness.
Research proves what we already knew back then:
“30% of Canadian seniors are at risk of becoming socially isolated,”
“the number one issue facing seniors in Canada is keeping older people socially connected and active,” and
“these challenges may sometimes result in a premature move to institutionalized living.”
With only 3 weeks until Christmas, the NeighbourLink board mobilized quickly to purchase the items to fill 53 gift bags and deliver them to our clients. The impact the small bags left easily convinced us to carry on the heartwarming tradition.
NeighbourLink has increased bag delivery each year, and in December 2023 we delivered just under 100 bags!
Here’s a thank you note from a past gift bag recipient:
“I’ve been depressed lately and the delivery of your gift bag was kindness and cheerfulness in a bag. It helped to lift my spirits - thank you!”
Some recipients are so overwhelmed when the gift bag is delivered to them that they cry - they honestly believed that they would be forgotten over the holidays.
Would you like to support our Christmas Senior Care Packages Program?
There are many ways in which you can support the lonely seniors of Summerland through our Christmas Senior Care Packages Program:
a financial donation helps NeighbourLink to purchase the gift bag items that don’t get donated. An etransfer is preferred to nl.summerland [at] gmail.com but we will gratefully accept cash or a cheque - please contact us to arrange this
donate physical items to go in the gift bags. Donation boxes will soon be available in the community** If you purchase items, save your itemized till receipt to submit to the NeighbourLink office (with your full name and mailing address) and a gift-in-kind tax receipt will be sent to you early in 2025
volunteer! We need many helper elves to bring this program to life: you could collect donations in the community; sort the donations; put the gift bags together; or deliver the gift bags right before Christmas.
**-starting on Sunday, November 10th, donation boxes will be available at Summerland Baptist Church, Julia Street Community Church, St. Stephen’s/United Church, and St. John’s Lutheran Church.
3 businesses will host donation boxes starting Tuesday, December 3rd: Maple Roch, RBC Summerland Branch, and the Summerland Credit Union. We are thankful to these participating partners to help us collect the physical donations! See the image below for the list of items we’d love to fill the gift bags with.
We are also able to continue this program thanks to the generosity of the Community Foundation of the South Okanagan Similkameen and many private donors and local businesses.
2024 NeighbourLink Summerland Wish List for Christmas Senior Care Packages Program