Some time in the next few weeks, we’ll wash the penguin, snowflakes, thermometer and signage from our front window here at KTW.
The Christmas Cheer posters will come down, as will our decorated tree in the front office.
Representatives of four Kamloops charities will be brought together as we share the proceeds of our first Cheer campaign here — and, as of this writing, the total is just a bit more than $46,000, although donations continue to come in.
We’re keeping the online portal at our kamloopsthisweek.com website open and the women in the front office here on Dalhousie Drive are delighted to accept additional donations for the next week or so.
Dave Eagles will take a photograph when we bring folks from the New Life Mission, Marjorie Willoughby Snowden Memorial Hospice House, Y Women’s Emergency Shelter and Sensational Soups program together to present the cheques.
Our work on the fundraiser here at KTW will be done until later in 2015 — but the money you have donated will keep that Christmas Cheer spirit alive through the next 12 months as these organizations continue their amazing work in the community.
It will see medical equipment added to the hospice.
Sensational soups — and sandwiches and desserts — will be served twice a week at Mount Paul United Church, with volunteers not needing to dip into their own pockets as often to buy the food.
The mission will have some additional funds to keep its many programs running to help the marginalized and needy in Kamloops.
And those at the women’s shelter — well, maybe they’ll be able to tick off a few of the items on their wish-list of items.
This rookie venture into the fundraiser KTW inherited from the Kamloops Daily News had its hiccups, to be sure.
In fact, at one point midway through the campaign, I emailed Gregg Drinnan — the man who brought the idea to Kamloops from Regina — and asked if he ever had a day when he was not exactly in the Christmas Cheer mood.
I’m pretty sure he laughed as he read the message, but he replied with encouraging words and memories of glitches he also experienced early in the dozen years he ran it in Kamloops.
Going to an online-donation system brought some challenges, largely because the people at the United Way Thompson-Nicola-Cariboo have never dealt with so many donations that come in with a wish to be anonymous or in memory of someone else.
The software wasn’t built to allow that, so there were plenty of daily email exchanges between KTW and the United Way as we worked them out.
Even then, as recently as last week, there was still another glitch that saw one of the in-memory-of donations not reflected that way in our tally.
We’ll have all those issues worked out before next year’s campaign.
In the meantime, while the Cheer Fund is coming to an end, the need continues not only for the four chosen charities, but for all social agencies in Kamloops.
Christmas tends to be a time when we all think of supporting them, but they need to be remembered all year long.
We need to remember we can give more than money to them.
The need for volunteers continues and, for many, that just means a few hours once in a while.
There are boards looking for people willing to put in a few more hours to work with the staff at these agencies.
They’ll thank you for it — and so will the people they serve.
Dale Bass is a reporter with Kamloops This Week. Her email address is here. Her blog can be found here. Follow her on Twitter here.
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