A bucket means love
Mennonite Central Committee ships help and hope to refugees
WHETHER IT COMES from the soap, towels or nail clippers, the message is clear. “We care for you.” The collection of donated health and hygiene supplies fits inside a 20-litre pail packed by volunteers last Thanksgiving. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) shipped the packed pails to people displaced by conflict and disasters around the world. It was the second year for the nationwide campaign.
“It’s great to have these items that are useful and essential for health and hygiene, but it’s more important to have this message of not being forgotten,” says Laura Kalmar, associate director of communications and donor relations at MCC Canada.
“It was a family event,” says Jana Al-Sagheer, communications co-ordinator at MCC Saskatchewan. “We always have these images of children who are as big as the buckets and they’re dragging them behind them with these big smiles on their faces, and so to be able to see children that young engaging in something that has such international implications, it’s like creating hope for the future.”
The Saskatoon packing party, in its third year, saw about 135 people pack 500 kits. In Kitchener, Ont., the event was smaller, but served as outreach. Patrons of MCC’s Thrift on Kent packed about a hundred kits as they stopped by.
“People who really didn’t know a lot about MCC” came by, says Sheryl Bruggeling, communications and events senior manager at MCC Ontario. Bruggeling says participants were amazed by the program and the thought that went into the kit contents. A couple have since returned to donate money.
Kalmar says, “We know, without a shadow of a doubt, that what is put into that bucket – health and hygiene supplies that are intended for a family of four – are the absolute necessities that our partners, local partners on the ground, are telling us are most needed, and that they can distribute equally to people in need.”
Kalmar shares the story of a Ukrainian woman displaced by the violence in the country’s border regions. She was then robbed – even her nail clipper was stolen. So the new durable nail clipper was what spoke to her out of her pail’s contents. She praised God that MCC’s partners had brought her the bucket at just the right time.
MCC shipped more than 22,000 buckets throughout 2018. “We feel like inviting people to create a bucket of thanks is really just a tangible way that people can provide hope, provide care to people around the world,” Kalmar says.