Gift box gave hope to struggling mother
Mom comes full circle by volunteering with Santa fund this year
Mandy Yeung was in no mood to celebrate Christmas when she found a bright green gift box from the Star’s Santa Claus Fund at her apartment door.
The family had been going through a difficult period. Her then-three-and-a-half-yearold son, Michael, had recently been diagnosed with autism. She was on employment insurance while on maternity leave with her daughter, Audrey. And her husband, Victor Man, was juggling odd jobs while studying medicine at university.
That’s when the Star gift box arrived.
“My gosh, that was such a nice surprise. That got me emotional. I was in a state of hopelessness, everything was grim,” the Toronto mother said.
Fourteen years later, Yeung signed up through work to volunteer at the Santa Claus Fund warehouse in Etobicoke. The colourful gift boxes she helped stuff triggered memories of the one Michael received in 2005 — and the joy and hope it brought to the struggling family.
“You don’t realize the impact of the gift box till you receive one. It moves you in a way you don’t realize,” said Yeung, a supply chain analyst with Joe Fresh, who joined her colleagues in volunteering at the warehouse this fall. “Being able to pay it forward now is amazing. I’ve come full circle.”
Now in its 114th year, the Star Santa Claus Fund was established in 1906 by the paper’s founder, Joseph E. Atkinson, whose mother struggled to raise him and his siblings after his father died. Through donations, the fund gives 45,000 gift boxes to children in need, up to age 12, at Christmas. Every dollar donated is spent on the gifts for the kids, whose names are supplied by social and community service agencies. This year’s fundraising goal is $1.7 million, the same as last year.
Yeung described Michael’s early years. Although he had a superb memory and could spell words with alphabet blocks when he was two, Yeung said she soon noticed he wasn’t communicating and was heartbroken when doctors finally diagnosed him with autism, a disorder that, at that time, had limited support and treatment.
“He was not responding to his name. He was not looking at you, but through you. There was no eye contact,” she said. “I was at the developmental pediatrician’s office. She delivered the diagnosis and basically said, ‘Sorry, there’s no cure for it, and he will never say, ‘I love you.’ They just took away all our hopes and dreams.”
Yeung said Michael was put on the wait lists for different treatment programs, including intensive behavioural intervention, which can cost thousands of dollars. Instead, Yeung would take workshops and try to apply the therapy herself by teaching her son imitation skills and repeating basic tasks with him.
“I grew up Catholic. I believed in doing good things, but at that moment, I didn’t believe that anymore. There was no God,” said Yeung, who decided not to return to her job as a project co-ordinator at Fairmont Hotel after her maternity leave so she could care for Michael.
“It was tough for me. I was drained. I didn’t seek support from friends or my parents. I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me.”
Through the Geneva Centre for Autism, a partnering agency of the Santa Claus Fund, the family learned to care for Michael and about the support available to them. At the time, Yeung said she signed up for so many things to get help for Michael that little did she know one of those forms she filled out was for Christmas assistance from the fund or where the gift box came from.
Already an avid volunteer in her spare time, Yeung signed up this October to help with the Santa Claus Fund. Immediately, she recognized the gift boxes filled with books, toys, mittens and other goodies. During her lunch break, she asked someone in charge of the warehouse operations if the gift box was around 14 years ago.
“It looked so familiar. The (gift) box has had such a huge impact out of something so small that we still remember it today,” said Yeung, who has since reached out to other families with autistic children to volunteer for the Santa Claus Fund this year. “Seeing these boxes takes me back to that special place. It gives people hope.” So much has changed for Yeung’s family since then. Michael, now 17 and no longer non-verbal, is enrolled in the developmentally delayed/multiple exceptionalities program at the Bishop Marrocco/Thomas Merton Catholic Secondary School.