As the holiday season comes around, Newmarket Lions Club president Rick Metcalfe is busy helping charitable causes.
Between preparing a lunch with Santa for local children, the Santa Fund to help provide Christmas to people in need, and amassing donations to give to charities in town, the Lions club has plenty of projects on the go this time of year, Metcalfe said.
But, this year, the donations it uses to fund those causes have dried up some. That is something Metcalfe said has a clear cause: a Canada Post strike rendering the club unable to send out mailers to solicit donations.
“We’re totally out of luck with that this year,” Metcalfe said.
The club is sounding the alarm about the impact the strike stands to have on charitable causes and urging people who regularly donate to keep it in mind this holiday season.
Canada Post workers have been on strike since Nov. 15 and a special federal mediator appointed between the union and Crown corporation suspended talks Nov. 27. Mail service remains unavailable with no end to the strike in sight.
Lions club member Kirby Brock said they send about 120 mailers out to regular donors seeking funds every holiday season. Other charities do this as well, Brock said. Without that, he said donations are way down. Normally, they get around $25,000 in donations or more from the effort; this year, they have only gathered about $6,100.
That has downstream impacts, Brock said.
“We had planned on providing the (Newmarket) Food Pantry $10,000 in January and $1,000 a month for the next 12 months. We said, ‘We’ve got to put a hold on that because we don’t have the money right now,’” Brock said.
The club supports about 362 families through its Santa Fund, Brock said, requiring about $37,000 to support. Those families get a voucher to get what they need at the grocery store, billed back to the Lions club. With fewer donations, the club has had to close its intake and limit other possible charitable donations it could make, Brock added.
“It’s going to help people who are in need, and that number has grown significantly over the last year, last two years,” Metcalfe said. “So, it impacts a lot of people.”
Metcalfe said the club does not wade into the politics around the Canada Post strike, but all groups like theirs can do is speak about how it is affecting them.
“And the impact it’s having at this time of the year, as opposed to any other time,” Metcalfe said. “That’s the maddening part.”
For now, Metcalfe said he hopes people remember to donate to charities this year even without any of their regular mailed reminders.
Donations to the club can be made through the group’s website.
