The Thompson Salvation Army has wrapped up its Christmas season, and the end result is a well-stocked food bank.
"We appreciate everything," says Major Linda Mailman, adding that if she tried to write individual thank-yous to everyone who helped the Salvation Army in some way, she'd be busy for the rest of the year.
The Salvation Army's holiday efforts included the traditional Christmas kettles around town, a food drive to restock depleted shelves at their food bank, and a toy drive.
"There were different businesses in town and different individuals who had toy drives and food drives that we want to thank," says Mailman. "Thompson rose to the challenge and was really helpful."
"Every one of the schools had a toy and food drive, including the high school," she continues. "One of the schools had a program where people could bring a teddy bear in, and those were donated for us."
"We had a toy-wrapping night where the toys that came in were wrapped," explains Mailman. "Quite a number of people came in and helped with that, it made the job go really quickly."
The toys were distributed to local families, while the food is now being stored at the Salvation Army food bank - along with other useful household items such as diapers - where it will be sent out through the year in hampers. Mailman says that canned milk and peanut butter are usually two of the fastest items to fly off of food bank shelves.
Christmas kettles were placed around town at City Centre Mall, Thompson Plaza, and Liquor Mart. "A lot of people helped with our kettles, standing a couple of hours at a time, and we really appreciate that," says Mailman. The amount of money donated to the kettle campaign in Thompson was lower this year than in 2009, which Mailman attributes to people being concerned about the future after Vale's November announcement.
Looking forward, though, Mailman sees Thompson as a community willing to step up whenever they are asked to. "If we run out of food through the year, we might say 'help!' and I'm sure we won't have too much trouble," she notes.
