ROSTHERN, Sask. – Two hundred children will find homemade Christmas joy under their trees this year through the efforts of seniors and staff at Santa’s Workshop in this central Saskatchewan community.
Since June, residents of the Mennonite Nursing Home and community volunteers have gathered to paint, hammer and glue toys and compile Santa sacks full of wooden wagons, cribs, teddy bears, mittens and slippers.
This year, toys will be distributed to needy Rosthern area families and Elizabeth Fry Society clients.
Jennifer Ganshorn, recreation director at the Rosthern care centre, co-ordinates the project here. She was involved in similar programs in Saskatoon while working at the former Eventide Home and as a student at the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology. She also helped start a Santa’s Workshop for the Salvation Army in British Columbia.
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The Rosthern resident said the workshop involves volunteers in meaningful ways, allowing them to share their talents and create more than 300 crafts.
“I believe seniors need to be part of the community,” she said.
Tillie Epp, a resident at the care home, files past rows of teddies and toys, squeezing a board game, a plush snake and mitts into a large brown shopping bag bound for the children of Elizabeth Fry clients.
The former teacher’s aide said the work gets her out of her room more often.
“This gave me a reason to get involved,” said Epp, 67.
Judith Heminger, executive director of Elizabeth Fry in Saskatchewan, said the crafts are distributed to children whose mothers are in jail, treatment centres or healing lodges.
“These children are the unintentional victim of whatever is happening to their parents and these gifts allow the society to help children know their mothers are still involved and thinking about them.”
Heminger said the children’s sense of loss is often particularly acute during the holidays.
“It gives you a wonderful feeling to brighten a child’s Christmas,” she said.
The workshop volunteers start with donated material such as basic wooden pieces made by the Kiwanis Club in Saskatoon.
Ganshorn, who likes to dress in antlers and listen to Christmas music while at Santa’s Workshop, quietly donates dozens of the teddy bears herself each year.
Ganshorn’s husband, Paul, said her loveof Christmas extends back to the days when her father filled in for Santa at a Regina hospital.
“For 25 years, I’ve been married to Mrs. Santa Claus,” said Paul of his wife, whose volunteer and other work was recognized with two awards from the Saskatchewan Parks and Recreation Association this year.
In the future, Ganshorn hopes to involve more of the community. She displayed crafts in a store window in Rosthern this fall to increase the workshop’s profile and local participation.
“Then we’ll be able to do more for more children,” said Ganshorn, a mother of two adult sons who volunteer here along with their parents.
“Everyone loves to make a child happy.”
