Christmas worsens pain of poverty

The boardroom at York Region Newspaper Group in Newmarket is a wild sight.
Instead of its usual clean, plush and boring business look, it's wall-to wall-toys and kids clothes.
Instead of making the company money, staff is wrapping, marking and delivering Christmas baskets to 62 families in York Region.
Of those, 19 families are spending Christmas at a local women's shelter.
The Santa Fund includes gifts for the moms, too. They deserve a gift or two. They're the bravest women I know. 
I'm turning my back on the news for a couple of hours tomorrow to help with the Santa Fund delivery.
Like many people of my generation, I've lived with poverty.
The memory softens with the passing of time. Still, I never want to go there again. It's a hard-hitting pain, especially felt at Christmas.
If ever we smarten up and eraticate poverty, I hope it comes at Christmas.
In the meantime, let's continue to care.
To all those in York Region who donated to the Santa Fund, thank you.
To all those receiving the gifts, enjoy.

Comments

[S.D.]

I am please to see that business like the York region newspaper are giving to the poor but It is not covering 1/4 of the people. Many working poor like me do not have any acess to any services as per we are not homeless(yet) or the children do not have any problem so no help from CAS. What is very saddening (in my case) is that I tried to contact many organizations to get help for Christmas and I was refused because I was not part of the population they help or I did not get any answer at all from some local churches. You said that you were poor before and you did not want to go back there, well for me the nightmare keeps repeating. I go back to school get more degrees (universities) but I do seems to be able to ever get ahead because of the student loans. In the last 1 1/2 I started to get sick while I was working in IT support, working many extra hours and I had to quit my stressful work where I was just bearely making enough money to survive. Because now I am working contract with the school board and cannot afford to go back to school(again) to be a qualified teacher, we are poor(again) with no hope for it to get better or no hope for my children to pursue their dreams. I do not know where we will be living in the next couple of months because I can no longer afford to live in a subsidize division were I have to pay market rent($1260.00/month+). If you are asking why I do not ask for subsidy? Well I did and I am on a waiting list(up to 5 years). This is the reality in York region. The regional government want people to live and work but people cannot afford to live in this region. The only few legal appartments available are extremely expensive and the rest, well you should have a look and see if you would stay in places that are fire hazards, mouldy and were landord will control when you are allowed to wash you clothes and leave in the morning because they have too many cars!!! I know that a lot of the Regional money is sent to Toronto which is unfair but maybe this government should first fight more to get it back and also should spent less money renovating community centres that are keeping increasing the prices of activities so children that could benefits from it can no longer participes. I hope that many more organization will start caring to find a long term solution for working poor in York region.
Thank you for reading this letter.