Community Sharing/ Christmas Caring Program
KCCU Supports our Community
Community Sharing Program
Kingston Community Credit Union's Social and Fundraising Committee has developed and spearheaded our Community Sharing Program which supports and strengthens local community organizations. As the only truly local credit union, these organizations directly affect our members and their friends and family. People who have been impacted by their generosity are regular folks like you and I, some are unable to work for reasons beyond their control, some due to the pandemic. People we know and care about, both give to and receive support from these caring organizations. This is the true meaning of supporting local.
Co-operation, community, education, and sharing are core values of Kingston Community Credit Union. We strongly believe in building co-operative relationships with our members and our community. For over 60 years KCCU has made a positive impact on our local community with charitable giving, volunteerism, and financial education. We have a proud tradition of co-operative business ethics and a commitment to continually demonstrate our mission, vision, and values. 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 few ways we have helped in the past few years:
- Collecting, purchasing and assembling Winter Care Kits which were distributed to marginalized youth in the community
- Collecting and purchasing socks for various organizations, including Socks Kingston, St. Vincent de Paul and JG Simcoe Public School
- Care kits for homeless youth distributed through One Roof
- Teddy Bears to the children’s wing at Kingston Health Sciences Centre
- Warming up seniors at Extendicare by distributing fluffy lap blankets and brightening their environment with Christmas light display
- Providing funding to local community organizations during Covid-19 pandemic for food support
- Holding fundraisers such as bake sales and BBQ’s to support organizations such as Kingston Humane Society, Loving Spoonful, Kingston 4Paws, KFLA Alzheimer Society, Dawn House, and the Kingston YMCA
- Providing financial literacy training to local schools and organizations.
Please follow us on social media to see how we help in our community.
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 “people helping people”. 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.
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!