The annual Sundre Santas program has just about successfully wrapped up for another season.
Volunteers were working hard last week at Santas workshop, located in the former municipal office immediately adjacent to the fire hall, packaging presents and loading up gift hampers.
"Right now we have four days left of Sundre Santas, and then it's over!" Cherie Johnson, Sundre Santas and Greenwood Neighbourhood Place family and youth coordinator, told the Round Up on Friday afternoon after a busy day of final preparations before deliveries.
The deadline for donations has past, and volunteers are now completing the task of distributing the hampers, she said.
"Wednesday is the last day. We're right on schedule," she said, adding the initiative has actually consistently managed to stay ahead of schedule this season.
Numbers were fairly comparable with last year, although there was a slight increase, she said.
"This year, we have 131 hampers," she said, adding that will go towards helping more than 330 people. That compares with 120 hampers last year that offered a hand to 307 people.
"We've had a lot of generous donations," she said, later adding, "Support from the community has been great."
Local organizations such as the Sundre Minor Hockey Association, River Valley School's Me to We Club, as well as the 4-H clubs have contributed significant amounts of food donations, with the annual 4-H food drive hauling in almost 500 kilograms, or about 1,100 pounds, she said.
Additionally, several local businesses have been offering incentives on their services or products to encourage people to contribute to the program. Overall, the business community, residents and local organizations have all really been stepping up to make Sundre Santas as successful as possible, she said.
Although community volunteers initially launched Sundre Santas many years ago, Greenwood Neighbourhood Place started taking a lead organizational role in the late 1990s, and this was Johnson's second year as coordinator.
"For me, I felt like it went better, because last year was my first year doing it," she said, adding having that experience under her belt made her more aware of what to expect this time around.
Of course community initiatives such as Sundre Santas are entirely dependent not only on contributions from residents, businesses and organizations, but also volunteers who spend many hours at the workshop preparing everything.
"I've said this before, that I couldn't do it without them," she said.
"The volunteers that have been here are all experienced peopleÖwe've had lots of new people as well, but our key volunteers have been with this program for years," which maintains a flow that helps ensure the program continues to run as strong, if not stronger, than when it first started all those years ago.
Come the new year, Sundre Santas organizers will get together to debrief and discuss how everything panned out this year to see where there might perhaps be room for improvement.
"We'll assess everything again and see what we can do different and better."
