Volunteers collecting for Niagara peacekeepers based overseas
Close to 25 boxes expected to be shipped to Latvia with aim to brighten service members’ Christmas
Agroup of volunteers are doing what they can to make a happier Christmas for local Canadian service members stationed nearly 7,000 kilometres away in Latvia.
Led by St. Catharines teacher Lea Bowman, the group is collecting items such as winter socks and warmers for their gloves, boots, cookies, cakes and other holiday-style snacks.
She expects to have 20 to 25 hamper-size boxes ready to be shipped out Tuesday via military support services.
“It always blows me away how amazing people are … they’re always willing to step up,” Bowman said. “It just warms my heart to see how generous people are.”
She and a few others collected items at a dropoff event Saturday outside Edith Cavell Public School in St. Catharines, where she teaches kindergarten.
As well as the gift items, stu
dents at the school created a banner about six metres long with drawings and personal messages for the soldiers.
They will be shipped to Capt. Nathaniel Metherel, who is also a teacher with District School Board of Niagara.
He is one of about seven Niagara members of the 56th Field Regiment based at the Lake Street armoury in St. Catharines serving with NATO
peacekeeping forces in Latvia. He will share the packages with the others he is serving with.
They’ve been there for about three months and will likely stay another three or four months, said Bowman, whose own family has a long history with the regiment.
Her daughter, Office Cadet Lauren Bowman, who was helping with the effort Saturday, is a reservist and fourthgeneration member of the 56th Field Regiment.
Bowman and her family organized a couple of similar efforts a few years ago.
“Many of them have kids … they’re serving over there without their families,” she said, noting Metherel, who used to teach at Edith Cavell but now works at Heximer Avenue Public School in Niagara Falls, has four children.
“So we thought, even if it’s a scaled-down version this year because of the pandemic, we have to do it.”
The schoolkids at Edith Cavell put a lot of effort into the banner, she said, and she’s impressed by the community’s response: “One couple in their 70s who didn’t want to shop because of COVID wrote me a cheque for a hundred dollars and said, ‘Go shop for us.’
“So I shopped and took a picture and video and posted it to social media so they could see what we purchased.”
The collected items will be shipped out Tuesday. Until then, anyone who wants to donate can contact Bowman at lea.bowman@dsbn.org.