Watch the video above: Christmas donations down in Saskatoon
SASKATOON – With Christmas around the corner, local non-profits and charities are anxious to help those in need but donations this year are lagging in Saskatoon.
Christmas day at the Friendship Inn means Christmas dinner. More than 1,200 of the city’s less fortunate will enjoy a traditional turkey dinner, but that’s only if there’s enough gobble to go around and so far, it’s not looking good.
“Instead of having about 200 turkeys by now, we maybe have 19 that have been donated so we’re very very low,” said Lynda Brazeau, executive director of the Friendship Inn.
Brazeau says donations just haven’t been coming in at the normal rate and estimates food stock is at about a quarter of what’s normally been donated at this time of year.
The Salvation Army’s kettle campaign is also struggling.
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“Part of the influencing factor is that as we progress, in this world of paper money, people are using cards and credit cards,” said Daryl Gran, the Kettle Campaign’s main organizer.
With only a week left in the campaign, Gran say there’s a distance to go toward the goal of $275,000.
The volunteer side, is lagging as well.
During the month-long campaign, Gran needs to fill 1,500 volunteers spots. The number offering to help out isn’t matching the number needed meaning some people have jingled upwards of 20 shifts to fill in the gaps.
“We sure could use some few extra people to fill in a couple of holes that we need,” said Gran.
Organizers have a theory as to why Saskatonians aren’t reaching out in their regular fashion and it isn’t that the city is feeling less charitable.
Rather charities believe it’s an effect of the cold weather and are hopeful that when temperatures warm up and people are out finishing their Christmas shopping, they’ll stop by with their annual Christmas donations.
“We have great, generous people in the city. They’ve never let us down before and so I’m really just hoping,” Brazeau said.
According to Statistics Canada, Saskatchewan ranks second for total dollars donated per family with the average household giving $544 annually – a tradition our local charities are hoping Saskatonians can live up to again this season.
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