We often say around Hope Mission that “hope begins with a meal.” This is especially true for holiday meals like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.
When our hungry and hurting guests enter the doors for these holiday meals, we want them to feel the love and acceptance of Christ. It is only through your generosity that we’re able to share that hope.
In addition to enjoying delicious and nutritious meals, Hope Mission guests experience the festivity of different holidays with decorations, music, entertainment, gifts, activities for kids and more. Guests feel particularly encouraged when they read the personal notes and greetings from donors like you.
200 turkeys. 125 hams. That’s just a fraction of the food we served for holiday meals in 2015.
In fact, thanks to your heartfelt donations, we served 1878 Christmas meals at our downtown Edmonton location, 402 Thanksgiving meals, and 490 Easter meals. That’s 2770 seeds of hope.
In Calgary, 1000 people enjoyed a festive Thanksgiving meal and 1300 people sat down to a delicious Christmas meal. Staff in Calgary met people off the street looking for somewhere to eat, especially struggling families, and welcomed them into a warm and loving space.
A single mom with three children volunteered during the Thanksgiving meal in Calgary. One of her sons began interacting with kids who were eating, and the son decided to use his own Christmas money to buy other kids presents.
Every day, hope takes root in small gestures and interactions like that.
And we couldn’t do it without you.
In Wetaskiwin, we organized a food drive. Many families didn’t have any food going into the Christmas break. We were able to stock 15 families with food that lasted them the whole break. Several teachers called it a Christmas miracle that we were able to mobilize that amount of food in a short time.
But we know it was much more than a Christmas miracle.