Many people in the Lethbridge community felt the economy’s impact on their wallets this holiday season.
The Christmas Hope campaign stepped up to help.
“We were delivering up until 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve,” says Michelle Gallucci, director of the Angel Tree campaign.
The initiative is made up of six partner agencies, helps assist families struggling to put food on the table and provides a special gift under the tree for their loved ones.
This year the project served 3,364 adults and 6,150 children in the Lethbridge area.
Staff with Angel Tree say this year required an unprecedented amount of support.
“We took on the cases of other organizations that didn’t have capacity to help out the children this year. 4,253 was our final count,” adds Gallucci.
Over at the Lethbridge Salvation Army the organization provided 590 kids with a gift as part of the Toys for Tots campaign.
“I think it’s really indicative of the times we’re living in. The economy, cost of living, everything like that. So, I was just pleased to read that we helped that many people,” says Lt. Zach Marshall, community ministries officer with the Lethbridge Salvation Army.
Staff with the Interfaith and Lethbridge food banks say they are not surprised by the high numbers this year.
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“We did over 1,000 hampers that served over 1,500 adults and just over 1,000 children as well,” says Danielle McIntyre, executive director of the Interfaith Food Bank.
It was a similar sentiment from Mac Nichol, the executive director of the Lethbridge Food Bank, “We served 650 households, which turned out to be 1,000 individuals.”
A large number of volunteers worked a gruelling amount of hours to ensure the Christmas Hope campaign went smoothly as close to 1,400 people put in around 12,300 hours of work during December to keep the magic of Christmas alive in Lethbridge.