Running until Tuesday, December 17th, the Eston 95 Lions are accepting donations to help with the local Christmas Food Hampers. Funds donated to the Hamper program are distributed to local families in need in the form of food purchase cards for the local grocer.

The President of the Eston 95 Lions, Marnie Johnston, helps to explain exactly how the process works.

“What we do in our community is, we send letters out to businesses, and our local churches, and we rely on them to send us donations, and then once we have all the money collected, we divide it out per person in each household.”

Johnston states that each person in a house is eligible for $50 to $100, and that a family of 6 people could potentially receive up to $600 in the form of a gift card. While final numbers won’t be in for a while, Johnston estimates that they’ve already collected as much as $3,000.

As we get closer to the Christmas season, Johnston expects that they will be receiving a bosst in donations, which will be helped by several smaller fundraisers that will be put on, including a catering event at a Farm Conference, as well as a Santa Clause Day, which brings in around $1,200 on average.

When asked why this food hamper is so important, Johnston stated:

“We’ve found in our community, there’s always a need. The Kindersley Food Bank actually used to support Eston, and this year that’s been removed, and Eston hasn’t set anything up yet as far as a local food bank, but I know there’s about 16 families that relied on that monthly in our community.”

Donations can be given to the Eston 95 Lions’ PO Box, 816.