The lights are up in downtown Sackville, the first Moonlight Madness is behind us, and craft fair season has started in earnest. The holidays are coming, and for many, that means a season when lower incomes and a lack of resources are more painful than usual.

Enter Christmas Cheer, a program run by the Sackville Community Association (SCA) for the past three decades, which provides grocery vouchers and gifts for Sackville households in need.

SCA treasurer John Higham describes the program as, “kind of the feeling of Christmas, where a community can help people who don’t have as much resources as others.” Higham says hundreds of current and former Sackville area residents support Christmas Cheer each year, with cash donations and/or gifts.

Hear John Higham on CHMA’s Tantramar Report here:

A donation box is set up at the Royal Bank downtown to collect cash and cheques, and the SCA website also accepts online donations. As a registered charity, the SCA can issue charitable tax receipts for those donations, when information is provided. For gifts, Higham says the group welcomes new items with a target age range specified. Gifts can be dropped off at the Sackville United Church downtown between noon and 4:30pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The last day to drop off gifts is December 9, 2022, but the SCA continues to receive cash donations throughout the year, and uses everything over and above what’s needed to run Christmas Cheer to support families the rest of the year.

Higham says the SCA mandate is to help those in need in the E4L postal code area, and that work can extend to other needs throughout the year, such as covering heating bills. “Getting in the next load of wood for the wood stoves, for kids that go to school that don’t have winter clothing,” says Higham. “There’s a lot of other elements that most of us don’t know exist here. And we’re able to help when we have those extra funds.”

Higham says that given the economic climate, the organizers behind Christmas Cheer are expecting the number of participating families to grow this year. Higham says the

“Our board was almost unanimous saying that the messages out there are that people did well with CERB, and were able to do much better in the COVID time. But that’s gone. And the anticipation of ourselves and the churches and other service agencies this is going to be a tough year. And they’re going to need lots of help.”

Higham says that anyone who identifies a family that may be in need can call the SCA and confidentially recommend them. SCA volunteers will pick up at 506-536-8883 or 506-536-5556 to help register new households for Christmas Cheer.