EDMONTON – As Meals on Wheels hosts its annual Christmas Dinner with Friends event, the organization still needs help to meet its fundraising goal for the year.
On Wednesday, local media personalities, including Global Edmonton’s Carole Anne Devaney, helped prepare, package and deliver a complimentary turkey dinner to Meals on Wheels clients.
“Different people who have supported Meals on Wheels throughout the year all come together, we call this our Christmas Dinner with Friends,” said Karryn North, the manager of marketing and fund development for Meals on Wheels.
There were several local business leaders and elected officials also on hand to help.
The video below shows Global’s Carole Anne Devaney singing while she volunteers alongside Speaker of the House Gene Zwozdesky and Liberal leader Raj Sherman.
“This is really important for our clients because they’re so isolated,” explained North. “Living at home, a lot of them are by themselves, and the Meals on Wheels person may be the only person they see. So having this festive, meal and gifts come to the door is really special for them because they can’t go out to the kinds of Christmas activities that the rest of us go out to, so we’re bringing that to them.”
Last week, the organization sent out a call to action to the Edmonton community, saying its Christmas campaign was just 45 per cent of the way to reaching its fundraising goal of $120,000 by the end of the year.
Since that time, progress has been made, but the group still needs support.
“We’re sitting at about $89,000 right now,” said North on Wednesday, “so we still have about $31,000 to raise over the next few weeks. “We are putting the word out there, asking people when they are thinking about their Christmas giving, if they could think about the Meals on Wheels client.”
The support – which is needed by Dec. 31 – will help fund the meal subsidy program for low income clients and grocery costs.
Donations can be made to Edmonton Meals on Wheels online , by phone at (780) 429-2020 or by mail at 11111-103 Ave, Edmonton AB, T5K 2P1.
Meals on Wheels prepares and delivers about 500 meals a day: 250 with its hot meal program and 250 with its frozen meal program.
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