One less thing to worry about this year
Young mother on tight budget welcomes Santa box for son, 2
Parents already face a laundry list of challenges that have dogged them throughout the pandemic, from education to child care to bills piling up.
That’s why this year, the Toronto Star Santa Claus Fund is especially important, giving children a dose of joy during the holidays and parents a much needed bit of relief. Since 1906, the Santa Claus Fund, started by former Star publisher Joseph E. Atkinson, has been bringing gifts and clothing to children in need, made possible by generations of donors, community organizers and volunteers.
One of the parents receiving a box this year is Tamia Richards, who works as a spa attendant in the Jane-Finch area while raising her two-year-old, Amari Herdoiza. She hasn’t had time to pick up the box for her son yet, but she knows that come Christmas, there will be a box of goodies waiting for him.
“I’m a young parent. I’m 22, and I work a minimum-wage job,” she says over the phone. “The box helps, especially now because I’m on a tight budget, and I’m really trying not to spend money on anything unnecessary. Christmas is coming faster and I’m penny pinching, and this really does help.”
With the sounds of her energetic son playing in the background, Richards talked about signing up for a box last year. The cost of diapers, formula and medicine was then adding up, so she turned to the fund, which the Jane Finch Community and Family Centre has been working with for the past five years. Richards signed up again this year, at a time when every parent could use a bit of help.
“It’s to lighten the burden off the parents because it’s a lot of stress,” says Kam Nowrang, a program worker at the centre. “There are financial strains on families, and they can’t always afford toys and books.”
The Jane Finch Community and Family Centre has been busy adjusting to the pandemic and figuring out how to serve its residents when in-person meetings are a no-go. At the centre, Nowrang was assembling dozens of educational activity kits being sent to children to use during Zoom classes.
Since March, the centre also helped residents with more than 1,000 CERB and EI applications, distributed 3,500 food hampers and made more than 5,500 check-in calls to those in the neighbourhood.
Other new services include: virtual homework clubs where kids get tutoring help; workers teaching seniors how to use conferencing apps; and online chats catering to youths, women and parents on maintaining mental health and healthy relationships.
“Parents long for the face-toface connection,” says Nowrang.
“We’ll have a talk with a focus in mind. But if parents want to talk about their child’s reading instead then we’ll go with that because it’s the parents who are taking care of the children. If you’re helping with the parents’ mental health, you’re helping the children.”