Photo Credit: Grande Spirit Foundation

By Shane Clausing

Spreading Christmas Cheer

Nearly 1,600 Christmas cards donated to seniors homes

Dec 18, 2020 | 5:00 AM

Close to 1,600 Christmas cards have been donated to the Grande Spirit Foundation Seniors lodges and apartments, as well as various other seniors homes in the region.

Karen Munjak with the Rotary Club of Grande Prairie and her friend came up with the idea to craft the cards to hopefully give some joy to the seniors who have been going through a rough 2020.

“A friend of mine mentioned it as something we can do with the Interact kids, which is sort of like Rotary for High School students,” explained Munjak. “What I did with some of my paper crafting friends was put together hundreds of ‘card kits’ and we distributed them to different Rotary Clubs in the city, Interact Clubs, some of the high schools and there were even card kits that went up to Peace River.”

“People assembled Christmas cards, wrote in them, and then those were distributed to the Grande Spirit Foundation as well as other seniors residences in the Peace Region.”

Each card kit contained card bases, Christmas paper, stickers, decorations, and ribbons. According to Munjak, most of the kits they distributed were uniquely different from the others.

Munjak says she sent out the card kits at the start of November and had no idea how many cards would get returned.

“Initially, I thought we’d make maybe 50-100 cards,” she recalled.

The number of cards Munjak got back quickly exceeded everyone’s expectations as hundreds of cards were mailed to the Grande Spirit Foundation.

“It quickly grew from there to a goal of 730 cards, which would get one card to every resident of the Grande Spirit Foundation. Within a week in a half, I realized we were blowing way past the 730 mark, and that we were going to pushing 1,600 cards.”

The cards were sent to the Foundation for distribution. Munjak said the seniors were quite excited to get a small present.

“I wasn’t able to distribute them personally to the seniors with all of the restrictions around COVID, but from the photos I’ve seen, they look really happy.”

Photo Credit: Grande Spirit Foundation

Photo Credit: Grande Spirit Foundation

Photo Credit: Grande Spirit Foundation

Photo Credit: Grande Spirit Foundation

Photo Credit: Grande Spirit Foundation

This year was the first time Munjak had ever attempted a project like this. With the success of the Christmas card donation this year, Munjak tells EverythingGP they plan on turning this into a new tradition.

“We’re already planning to do this next year. My two changes will be to start earlier and recruit more people to help with the card kits.”

The following schools and organizations helped make and distribute the cards:

• Rotary Clubs of Grande Prairie
• Interact Clubs of Grande Prairie
• Peace Wapiti Academy
• Grande Prairie Composite High School