MINDEMOYA—What started off as an idea in the mind of Mindemoya’s Marion Seabrook has blossomed into a one-of-a-kind Christmas tradition for Manitoulin youths each December—the Shopping for Kids event.
Thanks to the generous donations of the community, for the past three years children 12 and under have lined up at the Mindemoya United Church with Christmas shopping lists in hand on one day in December. The kids are then led into hall with an ‘elf’ (a member of the congregation) who show them where to find the gifts for moms and aunts, dads and brothers, grandparents and siblings. The elves are very careful, Ms. Seabrook explained, to not make suggestions on gifts—this must be left to the children.
After the children pick out presents for everyone on their list, and a little something extra for themselves, they bring their parcels to a new set of eight elves who get to work on wrapping all of these presents with gentle admonishments that they should be left under the tree for Christmas Day.
While the children are busy picking out presents, parents and infants are whisked away to either the church basement or sanctuary to drink coffee and eat cookies, and wait patiently.
Three years in and the event is an overwhelming success and is set to be bigger and better this year, providing the donations for gifts of all ages and genders keep rolling in. A unique feature of this event is the fact “each year it’s a fresh start,” meaning the gifts have never been seen before. Donations that weren’t picked up by an eager child are donated to charity.
“It’s just amazing the stuff that comes in here,” Ms. Seabrook said, noting that news of the event spreads far and wide with donations coming in from as far afield as Toronto and Massey.
“I just thought it would be a kind of a nice thing to recreate the joy of giving things at Christmas rather that just getting things,” Ms. Seabrook added.
She credits Willy Munroe, Carol McIlveen and Tom McQuay with their hard work on the event. This year, Ms. Seabrook is stepping down from her duties as lead on the Shopping for Kids event due to health issues, but has been enlisted as the ‘media rep’ to make sure the event gets the publicity it deserves.
“The people in our committee like Christmas,” she said matter-of-factly.
This year, Mindemoya’s Wayne Legge has offered storage for the donations as they come in. Items for donation can be dropped off each Thursday and Saturday from 10 am until 12 noon.
“We are asking the community to donate,” Ms. Seabrook said. “It has become an Island thing other than a Mindemoya thing and it makes no difference to anyone at all whether kids can afford Christmas or not.”
This year’s Shopping for Kids event takes place on Saturday, December 13 from 11 am until 2 pm.
