Members of Little Boxes-Plus stopped by the Stedman Community Hospice to donate $22,000 to the St. Joseph’s Lifecare Foundation on Tuesday, January 28, 2025.
Little Boxes-Plus is a grassroots organization that creates and sells a variety of handcrafted items to help raise funds for cancer care initiatives throughout the community.
“We donate 100 per cent of the funds to organizations that provide care to cancer patients in the community, and rather than having the money go towards operating costs or programming and such, it all goes back to caring for the patients themselves,” said Jane Prince, treasurer for Little Boxes-Plus.
While the organization has donated $10,000 to the Stedman Hospice in the past, not including what’s been raised through Handbags for Hospice, Little Boxes-Plus has spent the past two years working towards the specific goal of purchasing a new bed for Stedman.
“This is just an incredible donation,” said Julie Powell, President and CEO of the St. Joseph’s Lifecare Foundation. “We have ten beds here at the Stedman Community Hospice and we’ve been working to have them all replaced with newer models. So far we’ve been able to replace nine of them and so this donation from Little Boxes-Plus will help to replace that final bed in the building which is just amazing.”
Powell said that when it comes to providing end-of-life patient care, a comfortable bed can make a big difference.
“Our patients spend so much time in bed and so having something that is comfortable and easier to move around the building, really helps to provide comfort for them,” she said. “The new beds are also a little bit wider than the previous ones, and so that’s nice because it gives loved ones the ability to get in bed, cuddle and really just spend time with their family members.”
Made up entirely of volunteers, Little Boxes-Plus meets every Tuesday morning at Grace Anglican Church where they collect, sort and upcycle used greeting cards, card stock, unused envelopes and LANG calendars (a high-quality brand of calendar) into something new.
“We make things like little gift boxes of various sizes, greeting cards, and notepads, and then for Christmas time we try to do real speciality items like advent calendars and Christmas trees things too,” said Prince. “We typically sell our products at various markets happening around Brantford and the County, but we also have about eight retail stores that sell for us too which is really nice.”
Prince said that herself and the rest of the group were thankful for everyone who purchased their products or helped donate to their cause.
“It was a lot of work, but we also had a couple of very good donations,” said Prince. “We had all the employees from a firm in St. George pool some money together and they donated over $800 to our cause which was just so kind. It’s really wonderful that even during hard times, people can find some room to donate and help us. We’re so thankful that people were able to do that.”
Powell said the team at Stedman are incredibly grateful for not only Little Boxes-Plus but the entire community that helps support them every year.
“We’re just so grateful and we can’t thank Little Boxes-Plus enough, we wouldn’t be able to provide the care we do here at the hospice without the support of the community as a whole,” she said. “When you think about this $22,000 donation and how much time, effort and love that this group has put in to make that many pieces to raise this money, it’s really just so beautiful.”
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.
