(Photos Supplied: Friends of Grande Spirit Foundation Facebook)

By Abby Zieverink

Friends of Grande Spirit Foundation

Friends of Grande Spirit Foundation hand out Thanksgiving meals to seniors

Oct 13, 2021 | 3:25 PM

Residents living in Grande Spirit Foundation Independent Senior’s homes throughout the Peace Region were brought a warm meal on Thanksgiving from a group of volunteers from the Friends of Grande Spirit Foundation.

Wendy Doucet, who is the Fundraising Coordinator with the Friends of Grande Spirit Foundation, says their group of six volunteers delivered roughly 240 individually packaged, hot dinners to residents in the area.

“We met, picked up the meals, and everybody kind of scattered to their designated areas and we took them door to door,” she said.

“We each divided up the meals and went on little road trips and everybody got a thanksgiving dinner.”

The warm meals went to seniors living at Grande Spirit independent living homes in Grande Prairie, Clairmont, Sexsmith, Spirit River, Beaverlodge, La Glace, Wembley, Wanham, Eaglesham, and Rycroft.

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The Friends of Grande Spirit Foundation is a volunteer group that looks to raise money to help better the lives of seniors living in Grande Spirit Seniors’ Lodges.

“We raise money to buy things for the lodges that the government can’t provide. So, since COVID, we’ve been really focused on making sure that all of the residents can enjoy a holiday meal,” said Doucet.

“Residents living in, dependent lodges, they have a meal in their lodges, so they automatically get their turkey dinner or their holiday dinner, but the ones in the independent living, not so much because they cook on their own.”

Residents ( and helpers) at Dieppe Manor gathering to lend a helping hand to the Friends delivering meals to each apartment (Supplied: Friends of Grande Spirit Foundation, Facebook)

For this Thanksgiving, the meals were purchased by the group from the New Horizon Co-op and the Jackpot Grill in Grande Prairie.

However, Doucet says they have been doing this holiday meal delivery since the start of the pandemic and have received dinners from various businesses throughout Grande Prairie to deliver to these residents.

“We’ve touched on every holiday. We try to keep everybody in a routine that things are going to get better, things are going to get back to normal, but until it does, we’re going to make sure that they’re able to partake in every holiday, even if they can’t necessarily leave their lodge.”

Doucet suggests this holiday meal delivery is crucial in helping these residents feel less isolated, especially with the loneliness many residents face due to the pandemic.

“It’s just the fact that they’re getting the attention, and they do have something special, like we did all the holidays last year, over 900 residents of Grande Spirit got Christmas gifts and Christmas dinner and we do the same for Easter, and for Remembrance Day we do poppy cookies,” she said.

“We wouldn’t be able to do it without the help from our community.”

With the volunteer group unable to host their regular annual fundraisers, Doucet says they are currently running a virtual fundraiser in an effort to raise money for things to make Grande Spirit Seniors Housing feel like a home.

A link to the fundraiser can be found here.