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Samaritan House Community Ministries
Working to Empower Individuals
Donations
Christmas 2020
Burton Ave United Church
Many thanks to our faithful partners of the Burton Avenue United Church congregation. Year after year they partner with Samaritan House to ensure that over 60 children receive gifts on Christmas morning. Samaritan House provides a list of children that require assistance at Christmas with a suggested gift list provided by the parent. The congregation member chooses 1 or more of the names from the list and shop for that child. They never cease to amaze us and the families every year with the gifts that they provided. They are absolutely wonderful at selecting the items either from the parent list or age suited gifts. They also often include little notes and treats to go along with the gifts, and gift cards for the teens that are often missed. The families are overjoyed when they receive the gifts. Many families have experienced, job loss, illness and other crisis and they are left at Christmas stressed about providing gifts. Burton Ave. congregation assist with this every single year. They have hearts of gold and are a blessing to the children and families they help.
Scotiabank Mapleview Branch
Thank you to our wonderful sponsor from Scotia Bank, Mapleview branch this Christmas. What an amazing group of people that work there. Everyone from this branch came together joyfully to support a family in need. They extended their compassion and generosity and guaranteed that the children had many wonderful gifts to open Christmas morning. As well they ensured this family had something for the parents and made sure that the family would have a wonderful Christmas dinner. The family was overwhelmed with their generosity. Over the past several years, Scotia bank has contributed to ensuring children have a Christmas to remember by sponsoring families at Christmas. This is so very much appreciated by both the family and Samaritan House.
ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS
Rogers has stepped up again to assist Samaritan House in supporting a large family this Christmas as they have done in past years. The team at Rogers gathered their donations with love and caring for this family who had been experiencing crisis this year. Each Rogers branch pulled together and ensured each child had gifts to open Christmas morning. They thought of more than that though, they included a beautiful, wonderful gift basket full of items for all to use and enjoy. They not only took care of every child with gifts, and sending a wonderfully, amazing, gift basket. Rogers not only provided gifts for each child, but they also provided amazing electronics for the household to use. These are items that this family would never have been able to access on their own. We thank Rogers for partnering with Samaritan House to make this dream come true for this family.
KIWANIS CLUB OF BARRIE
Kiwanis Club of Barrie has again amazed Samaritan House with their caring and compassion that they extended to all the families and individual ladies living in our transitional housing this Christmas. For the past several years they have welcomed our families into their Christmas parties sharing a meal with the families we support and sharing songs and celebration and of course bringing in Santa to provide gifts to the children living in our homes. With the situation this year and no party to be had, they amazed us with a wonderful home cooked Christmas dinner with enough food to last for a week. As well, additional food and treats for the whole family. They came with the full meal and gifts for the children and personally delivered them. How amazing, heartfelt and personal. But this is the core of the Kiwanis Club of Barrie. They serve children and youth year-round and put compassion and sweat effort into the work they do.
NYMARK FOUNDATION
The Nymark Foundation has been there for Samaritan for several years. Each year the thought and personal selection of gifts for children and the ladies in our homes absolutely amazes us. Nymark Foundation works directly with us to run ideas by us, to see who items would best suit and they personally hand select items for children, teens and ladies in our housing. Along with these wonderful items, the Nymark Foundation provided a donation to ensure we can purchase gifts for any missed children can have gifts as well as assistance to our transition homes. It is wonderful to work with someone with so much devotion to ensuring that everyone is covered at Christmas time. We appreciate all you do for Samaritan House and our clients.
CHRISTMAS SHOE BOX PROJECT
Many thanks to Shannon Murree, who coordinates the Christmas Shoe Box Program for Simcoe County. Year after year Shannon works with volunteers to compile hundreds of gift boxes filled with essentials and various gifts to ensure that women in shelters and transitional housing have a Christmas gift to open Christmas morning. The boxes are put together with love and much thought. Each box is wrapped and filled with items overflowing. I get a call each year asking me how many boxes we need for our clients and she is there with the gift boxes. What an amazing heart and personal touch to the clients we serve throughout the year. The women in our homes appreciate that they have not been forgotten at Christmas.
Cheque presentation from Marie Raymond of the Optimist Club of Barrie
Community Support
From all of us at Samaritan House Transitional Housing, we would like to extend our appreciation and gratitude to the wonderful staff of the Grounds Guys Barrie, LMS Indoor and Outdoor Contracting and the Barrie Sharks Bantam B Girls Hockey Team who devoted a full day to transform the landscape and interior of our Transition Home. Samaritan House provides housing and programs for women and children recovering from domestic violence. We were selected to be Barrie’s recipient of The Grounds Guys of Canada annual We Care Day. This special day is in memory of a family member, to celebrate her life and demonstrate the spirit of C.A.R.E. by giving back to the community. And boy did they give back. The team arrived early in the morning and spent the whole day cleaning up the exterior of the home, transforming the landscaping with new shrubbery fresh gardens including planting new bulbs for the spring. They added new lighting, assisted with interior updating and added special touches such as planters and door wreaths. The finishing touch was the planting of a special garden to carry on the meaning and message of this special day for years to come.
Others who contributed through donations to make this day happen were The Barrie Garden Centre, Glass and Lighting Gallery & Home Furnishing, General Seed, Carr Excavating Ltd., and Justin Scott. With much gratitude and appreciation for the care, compassion and hard work with smiles you extended to Samaritan House we thank you all for the wonderful assistance and donation you provided to Samaritan House. - Kerry Ploughman
Samaritan House Executive Director
Bowls For Beds
