I don’t know if I will be able to write this without crying… I am already in tears – it has been one of those days. The stark reality that this Christmas will be a Christmas without my Mom. Mom was, at least for the past six years, always with us on Christmas. Prior to that, Mom and my step-Dad often shared Christmas with us too.

But I digress… This post is about giving back and how our house chooses to support different organizations, not only during the holidays but throughout the year.

When my son was small, a commercial came on of a little boy, visibly hungry and the voice over was telling us of how his mother couldn’t buy food. She worked several jobs, but didn’t have enough to buy the basic needs to feed her family. My son, who was probably two and half looked at me and said “Mama, why doesn’t his Mama go to the store and buy him food?” I explained that she didn’t make enough money to buy him food. He was stunned and crestfallen. “Mama!! We have to help him!” I told him there were children here in the same position – whose parents didn’t make enough money to feed their kids.

He was absolutely adamant that we go to the store right that minute and buy them food. It was seven pm and almost bedtime, but I promised him we would help them the next day. He held me to that promise and off to the store we went and he picked out food to buy and take to Edmonton’s Food Bank. A spark was lit and from that point forward, he did what he could to support the local Food Bank. Birthday parties, Christmas, Easter. If there was an event or holiday, he wanted to donate. He ended up on the local news one year, and the local Food Bank did a special promotional video on him because of his unusual generosity.

Several years ago, my sister had an intact female cat dumped on her property. This cat had kittens, those kittens had kittens, and so on and so on. It was out of control. She did her best to feed all of the cats, but it was a Herculean task. She struggled along for many years looking after an ever growing population of feral cats. Rehoming the ones she could, taking in the sick and motherless ones whenever possible. My sister and her husband did the absolute best by those animals.

Finally, in the spring of 2022, The Canadian Animal Task Force answered her calls for help and came out to help round up the many cats and kittens. The deal was, they would fix all the animals but she had to agree to take back all the adults – house and feed them. They would keep all the kittens (and pregnant moms) and find them homes. AGREED! It was never an issue to look after them, but stopping the exploding population was needed. My son and I went out to help that day, I don’t recall the exact numbers (I’ll ask my sister and update the post) but it was a lot of individuals!

Last, is the Yamnuska WolfDog Sanctuary. This is special for a couple reasons… One of which is because we had planned on taking our Mom in the spring. ❤ We knew she would love it. We had hoped to take her this fall, but she was just too unwell to make the trip. My sister and I went in September and it was amazing. It was one of the first times (if not the first time) in over 20 years she and I had gone away together. We had a great little trip away and had a great tour of the Sanctuary.

For us, it doesn’t matter how much we can share, but we like to try and share a little. My son used to always like to plan his trip for a Christmas Day Dinner and shop for all the things he’d like to eat (including breakfast).

Each of the organizations we support have their own specific pages for what they most need.

Edmonton’s Food Bank Ways to Give

Canadian Animal Task Force Support Us (They even have an Amazon Wish list!)

Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary Support