Volunteer groups get busy sorting toys for Christmas hampers

Volunteers are busy getting toys ready for Steinbach Community Christmas with the first round of hampers going out on Monday. 

Toy coordinator Joanne Dyck says groups have been coming in to help sort more than 1,700 gifts that were donated during toys days last week at Canadian Tire. 

“We have to move quickly so we can clear out space for more toys,” she says.

The toys were all delivered to their organization space in the United Church, which is beside South East Helping Hands. That is where volunteers sort them by age category and gender, and then they are labelled.

"Once we have the list of people receiving hampers, we know the ages of their kids and then we pack bags with gifts for each of the children and those bags go out with the hampers.” 

They will soon know if there are enough gifts for each age category. 

“At this point, it’s a little bit hard for me to say right now. We might still be lacking a little bit in teens and possibly babies.” 

This week, they will be collecting more donations from toy drives that were held in schools so, there might be enough to fill the list this year. 

Over 2,000 children will be getting a gift through Steinbach Community Christmas. In 2022, over 1,900 gifts were distributed.

Steinbach Community Christmas is made up of a committee of volunteers who come together each year at Christmas. They co-ordinate the assembly and distribution of Christmas food and toy hampers to families in the Southeast.

It takes a lot of volunteer hours to sort and package over 2,000 gifts for children in Steinbach and surrounding communities.

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