Instead of presents on his 70th birthday, Glenn Angus asked friends and family to give gifts to children in need.
“We thought, well let’s celebrate because it was a significant milestone of course. I think sometimes people feel a need to bring a gift, and there’s nothing that I particularly need, but I thought of it as an appropriate outlet for people to fulfill that need and do it in a way that does somebody some significant good,” Angus said, adding he did the same thing on his 60th birthday.
“At this point, we’re comfortable, we’re happy and what do you get for an old guy?” he joked.
Angus will be donating his birthday haul to Burnaby Community Services’ Christmas Bureau. For the last 35 years, low-income families, seniors and those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness have been able to open a gift on Christmas morning, thanks to the generosity of folks like the Angus family.
The bureau helped 3,574 people in 2015, including 1,931 children, 106 seniors and 33 others who were homeless or at risk of homelessness. This was an increase of 13.4 per cent over the numbers served in 2014, partly because the bureau handed out gifts and household items to more than 80 Syrian refugee families that Christmas.
Registration for this year’s bureau is now open.
“We’re expecting to be about the same, maybe a slight increase for some of the Syrian families who came last year, who we’re expecting to return this year,” Stephen D’Souza, executive director of Burnaby Community Services, told the NOW.
D’Souza said the number of seniors benefitting from the Christmas Bureau is going up, and staff expect that number to double this year.
“We know from our network and reaching out into the community, we’re getting out to more seniors than we have before, but because they’re so isolated, they’re a real hard population to reach out to. It takes a lot of relationship building and a lot of going into subsidized housing facilities to build those relationships,” he explained.
Rates of depression and feelings of isolation and loneliness are really high around the holidays, according to D’Souza, who said the Christmas Bureau is a good opportunity to break that cycle.
“We really encourage people to take this opportunity, to think not just of their families, but of other communities around them and the families and seniors in need who are their next door neighbours, and they might not even know it,” he said.
Register for the 2016 Burnaby Christmas Bureau
Who: Burnaby families with low incomes and children 16 years and younger; low-income seniors; people on income assistance; and people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
What: Once registered, applicants are paired with a donor. The donor receives the applicant’s wish list (donors are encouraged to spend roughly $100 per person). Applicants who don’t receive sponsorship are given access to the Christmas Bureau toy room, which is open from Dec. 14 to 21.
When/where: Registration is open until Nov. 30; Mondays, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the Brentwood Community Resource Centre, 2055 Rosser Ave.; Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Edmonds Community School, 7651 18th Ave.; Thursdays, from 1 to 5 p.m., at the Cameron Recreation Centre, 9523 Cameron St.; and Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., again at the Brentwood Community Resource Centre.
Toys can be dropped off at the Brentwood Community Resource Centre on Mondays and Saturdays. Much needed items include gifts for teens and books. For more information, call 604-292-3902.
