Group planning to save free Christmas Day dinner
Niagara United rounding up donations, volunteers to continue holiday tradition
St. Catharines might have a free Christmas Day community dinner after all.
Volunteers with the group Niagara United have been in talks since the weekend to round up donations and commitments from people to help pull it together.
The annual Spirit of Christmas dinner had been held downtown for at least the past 12 years. Last year it drew about 500 guests. But when Gord’s Place restaurant closed earlier this year the tradition looked to be finished, at least temporarily.
“My heart kind of started to hurt” after learning of the cancellation in a Standard article, said Wendi Duggan, a Niagara
United member.
Since then, she and about 15 others have spoken with contacts in the community to line up donations of food as well as help cooking and serving the dinner and staffing a hall. They have set up a GoFundMe page hoping to raise $5,000 in donations (search ‘St. Catharines Community Christmas dinner’) and hope to collect new toys as gifts for children. They are talking with two potential host sites and expect to have a location confirmed shortly.
To donate or offer to help, visit Niagara United’s Facebook page or its website NiagaraUnited.org.
The Spirit of Christmas dinner took months to plan and threw its doors open to anyone
— people who were alone, or others who just couldn’t afford their own full turkey dinner on Christmas Day. It also offered gifts for children.
With the De Divitiis family, staff and students at Niagara College played a big role, collecting food, handling the cooking chores and helping serve on the day. But with Gord’s closed, they’ve committed to another
Christmas event this year.
Duggan is optimistic but said, “It won’t be as fancy as Gord’s, I don’t think. From what I understand it was a very good dinner.”
The important thing, she said, is that a meal is served again this year, especially for people who otherwise would have nowhere else to go.
“I’ve spent some Christmases without my kids. It’s lonely,” she said.
“Christmas just doesn’t feel like Christmas. Everything is closed … it’s really a day of loneliness” when there is nowhere to come together.
She said most volunteers might only have to work for a few hours that day, so they don’t give up their entire Christmas Day. There could be a few sittings on Dec. 25, and they plan to seat everyone together so no one is left alone.
Niagara United came together a year ago over concerns about mental health and suicide issues in the community. Duggan said she hopes people from all across the city, and not just group members, will step up to help.
“I think this is the time when communities should come together,” she said.