What’s Your Reason to Give?

Each Christmas, Brenda and her daughter, Chrystie, organize gifts and food for more than a dozen families in Abbotsford. They do it to remember their kids, Coleton and Ryker, both of whom passed away on February 18th—Coleton in 2011, and Ryker in 2016.

 

“As a parent, your biggest fear is that you are going to lose a child. Your second is that people are going to forget about them. We didn’t want that to happen. Instead,” Brenda said, “we wanted to keep their memories alive. So we started to buy presents for families in need, just as we would for our own boys.”

“Making people happy, makes us happy. It’s also a part of our healing process,” admits Chrystie. “We don’t just provide the bare minimum. We go above and beyond! It’s what the boys would want, and it’s what we’re about.”

 

For them, Christmas is about more than gifts. It’s about being together as a family and looking out for those in their community.

 

“There are so many places that we could give to, but for us, it’s important to give back to our local community. We love knowing that our donation stays here. Even more than that though, we love knowing that we’ve made a difference in the lives of those around us.”

 

Each month, the Abbotsford Food Bank & Christmas Bureau assists more than 3,500 individuals, 1,500 of which are children. In order to continue doing what we’re doing, we need to raise $1.3 million each year. Will you help? Will you be a part of changing lives in our community?