Shediac, N.B. Santas provide children with food, socks

For the past 27 years, Tina and Ken Golding of Shediac, N.B. have been turning their living room into a Christmas workshop in order to feed hungry children at Christmas.

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“Just because they are going to the food bank doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with them. It could be they lost their job, illness, anything,” said Tina Golding.

Tina, 82, and Ken, 92, have been acting like Shediac’s own Mr. and Mrs. Claus by making tote, wine and shopping bags using donated fabric which they then sell to raise money for the local food bank’s Christmas food boxes.

“It has to be candies first and when they have candies for all the kids, the rest of the money can go for food,” said Golding.

The couple has raised $70,000 for the food bank through selling the handmade bags over the past 27 years.

“I would sum them up with one word: wonderful…and caring…, that’s two words, sorry,” said Judson Cassidy from the Shediac Food Bank, Vestiaire St-Joseph.

This year, they took their giving a step further by starting a program called “Socks for Tots.”

After hearing about a little girl who visited the food bank only wanting a pair of socks without holes for Christmas, the Goldings started a sock drive.

“Well I thought we’d better get at doing a little something about it,” said Ken.

The Goldings have stitched together nearly 5,000 socks so far.

“As of last count I think we are somewhere between 47 and 4,900 pair of socks this year which is just amazing,” said Cassidy.

Through the sock drive, it’s estimated every child who goes to the food bank will now receive not one, but five new pairs of socks.

“Let’s put it this way, I have everything I want and I don’t like to see people with nothing,” said Ken.