It was a day-long show of support on Friday at St. Joseph’s Outreach Centre for the Children’s Foundation of Guelph and Wellington’s annual Adopt-A-Family Program.
The initiative matches donors with families in need and provides them with basic necessities such as diapers, bedding and winter clothing over the holiday season.
Families referred to the program include single moms and dads, independent youth, two-parent families, along with children being raised by grandparents.
“We started the day with a little over 100 families waiting to be adopted and we’re down under 50 families now,” said Karen Kirkwood, Adopt-A-Family Program Director. “So we still have many weeks to go before Christmas, but our goal today is to at least get that under 50 and we’ve certainly accomplished that.”
Last year the campaign helped 1,114 families and 2,396 children received personalized gifts thanks to over 1,000 donor groups.
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But Kirkwood said the need is greater this year as they have already helped 1,036 families.
“I expect, based on last year, we’ll probably get another couple of hundred families referred and we try to help them as close to Christmas as we can,” she said.
Cash donations are also accepted as well as grocery store gift cards so families can purchase a holiday dinner.
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