The Kamsack Family Resource was recently given a grant through the Yorton and District Community Foundation to provide COVID support packages to over 50 families in the Kamsack Community. Megan Peters, a Family Resource Centre staff member, was proud of the idea to start the community outreach effort.
“Part of what we do is focus on family wellness and support so we thought we could help families through COVID to keep them up with their grocery purchases, their cleanliness needs and mentally well with books they were wanting,” says Megan Peters.
The grant has enabled the centre to reach over 50 families with laundry detergent, masks for children and adults, hand sanitizer, as well as a gift card to the coop to purchase groceries. The decision to include these items was based on the information collected about families over the years the centre has worked in the community and was how they decided to distribute the packages.
“It’s for families to stay safe and healthy for families to read and be together to stay safe.
“I’m so happy that we are here to help families through this. What’s going on right now in the world is wild and no one could predict what was going to happen. It’s a real gift to give back to families that struggle, it means a lot,” says Peters. “It’s not about me it’s about the people we give this stuff to I hope this gives them a bit of a break and helps them stay healthy and well.”
The centre knows it it’s a challenging time for families as they are choosing to stay home with their children and making their safety a priority.
“It’s about recognizing your family situation might have changed in the last six months,” says Peters. “We hope that this gives you a break.”
Peters believes it’s important to keep everyone healthy, whether it’s physical health or mental health with the pandemic going on and she wants to be able to have the means to protect those that more vulnerable to the impacts of multigenerational problems during the pandemic.
“If you have grandma and grandpa at home, they are at risk too,” says Peters. “We need to keep everyone healthy, it is important.”
“A lot of people weren’t expecting these packages, it was nice to hear that it is going to really help and I can’t thank this emergency fund enough for doing this. We wouldn’t have been able to do this without the grant so that we were approved is just fantastic.”
The families were chosen based on the information the centre has including risk factors like being low income, having to keep their children away from school and being in a multigenerational household.
“I’m hoping we can keep everyone safe and healthy,” says Peters. “I would like to see more funding to keep helping people to keep providing the support. It would be great to do another round of these, we hope we will in the coming months.”
