Moni Loewen and Hank Klassen

Southeast Helping Hands in Steinbach has received a major donation. The Emmanuel Evangelical Free Church Sunday presented the food bank with a cheque for $46,000.00. Hank Klassen, the head of Helping Hands, greatly appreciates the funds.

"When we heard the news, we were quite flabbergasted that a church would go to that length and do fundraising for us to be able to give milk to all of our clients for the year 2013. We were elated when we heard that. We didn't really think it would come that quickly but it sure did."

The church set a goal to raise $25.000.00. Klassen adds the fact they exceeded the goal by $21,000.00 means Southeast Helping Hands can put that money into reserve for the following year.

Meanwhile, Klassen says fundraising for Community Christmas has pretty much wrapped up.

"We are just about at par with last year so we're looking pretty good and there're still some stragglers coming in. I think we'll be able to cover it again this year thanks to the generosity of our people in Steinbach and area. It's just fantastic to deal with those kinds of people who have that kind of sympathy for what we are doing so it's just been really good."

Klassen notes they had budgeted $125,000.00 for Community Christmas and ended up taking in about $8,000.00 more than that.