The Paris Community Christmas Hamper and Toy Drive will be distributing well over 100 holiday hampers to families in need on Friday, December 20, 2024.
The grassroots initiative, which started well over three decades ago, works to provide non-perishable food items, essential supplies and toys to families during the holiday season.
“The Christmas Hampers program is run by a group of volunteers and we typically help out just over 150 to 175 County of Brant families every year,” said Matt Amy, community hamper committee members and a firefighter with the Paris Fire Station. “We’ll give them some pantry items and a few of the basics for Christmas dinner, and then if it’s a family, the kids will receive some gifted toys as well.”
Since around mid-November, local schools, businesses, community organizations and first responders have been hosting events to collect the various items, of which the Community Hamper committee is the beneficiary.
From there, droves of volunteers work together to sort and package the holiday hampers, and distribute them to registered families on December 20.
“We sort everything at the fairgrounds in Paris and so the volunteers will go through and put together the baskets of food,” said Amy. “They’ll also go through the registration sheets and will do their best to try to accommodate and personalize the toys for the kids and their interests.”
Amy said that despite the cost of living, he’s always impressed with how the community shows up for others.
“Over the last couple years, you can see that things have been getting more and more expensive and it’s getting tight for people,” he said. “We always wonder if we’re going to get enough for the program, but every year we keep getting more; it’s like the community is recognizing that if things are tough for them, then there’s got to be others that need it even more, and so they give what they can.”
Amy said that while it’s always great to team up with the local OPP, EMS and other community organizations every year, something that was new in 2024 was the Hamper program teaming up with Hamilton newscaster, CHCH.
“That opened up some new avenues,” he said. “They partnered with the Paris Firefighters Club’ toy drive this year and we’re hoping that if we get some extra toys, that we’ll be able to support other local community groups in the future as well.”
Richard Brennan, Brant County OPP Auxiliary Unit #1, added that he loves being a part of the drive every year, and that he couldn’t say enough about the public’s support.
“People are very generous, we’ve gotten lots of money and lots of food so far and it’s just been great,” said Brennan. “It’s a tough time of year and people are just trying to put food on the table and so we certainly can’t say enough good things about the public and their ability to give what they can.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
