Community Sharing/ Christmas Caring Program

Community Sharing Program

As part of the credit union philosophy of People Helping People, KCCU is committed to building, strengthening, and enhancing the lives of those in Kingston. Each Christmas season and throughout the year, our Community Sharing Program helps support local organizations by providing financial and volunteer support.

Here are a some ways we have helped in the past few years:

  • Collecting, purchasing and assembling Winter Care Kits which were distributed to marginalized people in the community
  • Collecting and purchasing socks which are distributed in the community via Socks Kingston
  • Teddy Bears to the children’s wing at Kingston Health Sciences Centre
  • Warming up seniors at Extendicare by providing some Christmas cheer.  Over the years we have distributed fluffy lap blankets, brightening their environment with Christmas light display and providing support for Christmas bingo and other activities
  • Providing funding to local community organizations for food support
  • Holding fundraisers such as bake sales and BBQ’s to support local organizations (see our Community Report for details)
  • Providing financial literacy training to local schools and organizations.

Please join our email list and follow us on social media to see how we help in our community and upcoming events.

How can I help?

 


Christmas Caring Program

The KCCU Christmas Caring Program has been going strong for over thirty years and has assisted over 1,000 members and their families to have a joyful Christmas. The program evolved from an annual staff gift exchange and blossomed into a co-operative community program of "members helping members”.  Christmas Caring is designed to help those members who have encountered personal economic hardship over the past year due to illness, layoff, job loss, under-employment, or limited income. We provide our member families with a supply of staple groceries that should last the family 2-3 weeks as well as all the fixings for a traditional Christmas dinner.  We also provide gifts for the families' children and recently, low income seniors.  

Early in December our branch’s “Giving Trees” are adorned with cards.  Members and our staff take a card from the tree and purchase gift(s) or make a donation as outlined on the card to help support the program.  Cash donations are used to help purchase groceries for the families.  Many of our members look forward to selecting a card and enjoy purchasing a gift for a child who might not otherwise receive one.  Our goal is to provide a food hamper to each family along with the gifts for the children.  We also hold staff fundraising events throughout the year to support the program.

A few years back we started to also include nominated limited income seniors to our program and added our seniors to our Giving Tree along with the children for gifts.  What a success!  How wonderful it is to let an ill or very limited income senior know that someone cares!  Sometimes this is the only gift they might receive.  Providing them with a small food hamper also gives them the ability to invite family or friends to enjoy a Christmas dinner with them when otherwise they would not have sufficient resources to do so.

It is inspiring to see how generous and caring our Credit Union Members and staff are. Thank you for all those who continue to contribute to the program!

 

How can I help?