Martha’s House residents making Christmas brighter for CRH patients
Residents at Covenant Living Martha’s House have made over 70 Christmas stockings to be donated to patients at Chinook Regional Hospital to help brighten their Christmas morning.
The handmade fabric stockings are filled with small gifts by volunteers, and letters of hope written by students from local schools.
CRH Operation Christmas Stocking aims at bringing joy to patients who can’t go home for the holidays. The initiative, co-ordinated by CRH Volunteer Resources, has been an ongoing project for more than 30 years.
Dan Gosse, activity co-ordinator at Martha’s House, organized the event for the group of residents, and within a few hours on Friday morning, they were all decorated.
“Our residents love to give back to the community, so I thought with it being Christmas time, this would be an awesome time for them to give back to the community with a little craft project,” said Gosse.
Being the initial event at Martha’s House, residents are eager to start making plans for next Christmas.
When it comes to the community, the generous residents are willing to do what they can to make others happy.
“It’s a tough time for people to be in the hospital at Christmas time, so this is putting a smile on the residents’ face, that they’re putting a smile on someone else’s face,” said Gosse.
To give back in such a selfless way makes residents like Kathy Brooks and Jennie Machacek, who both sewed the stockings together, feel good about giving back to the community.
Brooks likes giving back by volunteering at the hospital and has been a volunteer there for 15 years.
She hopes the stockings will brighten the patients’ day because she says when you do something for someone else, you feel better. “Hopefully it will make some people happy when they receive them, and that they feel the love that went into making them,” said Brooks.
Residents who couldn’t participate in the project helped in other ways by donating money for supplies.
Carla Koyata, site manager at Martha’s House, says the residents still have a strong need to be part of the community.
“I think it’s very important for our population of residents to continue to feel linked to the greater Lethbridge community, and this project, in some small way, enables them to feel that link,” said Koyata.
She adds when paying it forward, the residents experience a sense of fulfilment when they’re able to participate in giving to people in need.
Since Christmas can be a difficult time for people who are hospitalized, giving a homemade gift can make all the difference to people in need of a little Christmas cheer.