Families find it’s better to give than receive

The Willoughby family, from left, Chad, Cassie, Colleen and Cayley, wrap presents they purchased for a family they adopted through the Okotoks Healthy Family Resource Centre. photo by Tamara Neely

By Tamara Neely
Staff Reporter

If the joy of giving is superseded by the deflation of shopping for someone who has everything, the time may be right to consider adopting a needy family at Christmas.
Many families in Okotoks have decided that while they want their children’s eyes to light up with the surprise of a few gifts under the tree, the adults don’t need anything else. Therefore they have decided to pool the cash they would normally put towards gifts and put it towards groceries, presents and gas for families who are having a hard time this Christmas.
The Okotoks Healthy Family Resource Centre (OHFRC) and the Rowan House Emergency Shelter (formerly the Eagle Women’s Shelter) coordinate between families who can use the help and families who want to provide for a family this Christmas.
Dodie Gaudry, coordinator of women’s services at Rowan House, said that Christmas time is a difficult time to be needy.
“This time of the year, it’s not that they are needier families, it’s just that it’s a terrible time to be a needy family, because there is constant, every day focus on it,” said Gaudry. “I come from the same kind of background myself, and we didn’t know how poor we were until Christmas time came along and everybody talked about the stuff they were getting, the big meals they were making or places they were going. You know, most of the time it’s not going to make you feel bad every day, like it does at Christmas time.”
The Rowan House operates a rural shelter and an outreach program for people who are in the process of leaving an abusive and violent home situation. In addition to struggling emotionally with escaping a bad situation and in addition to feeling physically vulnerable, these families are also struggling with paying rent and juggling childcare.
“If you’re barely making your rent and you’re going to the food bank…. Honestly, there’s a reason why the suicide rates are higher (at Christmas time),” said Gaudry.
A family receiving a gift hamper ensures there will be presents under the tree from Santa. This is a great stress relief for the parent caring for the children, “So they don’t have to spend the next three weeks feeling bad about what they can’t give to their kids at Christmas time,” said Gaudry. “You know that your kids are all going back to school, and they’re talking about what they got at Christmas time, and that there’s nothing worse for a mom than knowing that her kids are going back and saying, ‘I got socks and mittens.’ That’s what she had to get because they didn’t have those things, and that’s where the extra money was going.”
A woman from Okotoks, who wishes to remain anonymous, together with her stepmother chose to adopt a family in lieu of exchanging presents this year.
“I know personally how devastating it can be to not be able to provide for yourself. It’s more than just financial; it eats at your very soul,” she said. “(My stepmother) is 91 and doesn’t need a darn thing and doesn’t want anything. Myself, I’m not rich, but I don’t want for things.”
Pooling approximately $60 each, which they would have spent on each other, the women purchased a gift certificate for a grocery store with a budget in mind for a Christmas dinner, a gift for the woman they adopted and her child.
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“I like buying gifts for people, anyhow,” said the sponsor. “You have an excitement because you know you’re going to make Christmas special. Being the provider and the adoptive family it probably did as much for me as it will for them.”
For this sponsor and her stepmother, providing for a family brings a happiness, and for them, that is what Christmas is about. She chose a family through the Rowan House because she sympathizes for them.
“These women (and men) they’ve got a double whammy. They’ve come out of an abusive situation and they’re trying to go beyond that and to provide for themselves, and they’ve got quite a hill to climb: emotionally, mentally and physically,” she said.
Providing a gift hamper shows that the community is here to help and support them, she said.
“It restores your faith in humanity to see the number of people who come forward to do this. It’s wonderful,” she said.
Sponsor families are matched with adoptive families of a size that is financially feasible.
Colleen Willoughby and her husband Chad, for example, pool their Christmas giving with her mom and dad and her brother and sister-in-law, and were paired with a larger adoptive family.
“We don’t exchange gifts anymore; we put all of our money toward the family,” said Willoughby. “It’s so much more fun shopping for this family. It really means a lot for us, even though we don’t know who they are.”
Willoughby and her family made a group decision to sponsor an OHFRC family instead of exchanging presents among the adults. Willoughby’s children, Cayley, seven, and Cassie, four, and her brother’s children do receive presents from Santa.
“Christmas gets absolutely ridiculous,” she said. “Kids get too much. They get too many presents and I don’t think they appreciate them. They play with them for five minutes and then on to the next one.”
The Willoughbys are teaching their daughters about sharing with others in the community and that the comforts they themselves have are to be valued because not everybody is as fortunate.
Cassie turned four this December and at her birthday party the Willoughbys invited guests to split what they would have spent on a present for Cassie and donate half to the family they are adopting.
Channelling the joy of giving to those in need seems to be a growing trend. Another Okotoks family, Jen Graham and husband Kevin, also invite their children’s birthday party guests to donate to a cause within the community. Like the Willoughbys, they raised money for Hope for Hannah Foundation, which helps Hannah Ellefson, from Okotoks, cope with a rare and debilitating form of epilepsy. Graham’s children are happy to be involved.
“They feel good about it, and it’s nice to see,” said Graham. “And I’m starting to see other moms doing it.”
For five years Graham’s extended family have donated money to a family they adopted through the OHFRC because they want to help out a family in the community. And for Graham it’s the antidote to how commercial Christmas has become.
Involving her children in the process of choosing gifts for the adopted family teaches them the self-less side of Christmas.
“They get to buy things and pick stuff out,” said Graham. “It teaches them compassion and empathy for other people.”
Client families fill out a form the OHFRC provides, with a list of needs and wishes, and the OHFRC forwards that list to the sponsor families. Though they never meet, nor do they know each other’s names, the sponsor families are provided with the number of family members, gender, ages, interests and favourite colours. Then off they go to pick out gifts for people they have never met.
Tammy Evans adopted a family through the OHFRC with her husband, sister, brother and parents.
“It’s so exciting – we’ve never done anything like this,” said Evans. “It was kind of nerve-wracking because you don’t know anything about the family, but you get an image in your mind about what they might like. The only hard part is not knowing if the family likes what you’ve chosen. You just hope everything is okay.”
They decided this year to commit their Christmas budget to adopt a family in lieu of exchanging presents because they were in the habit of drawing names and then just telling each other what they wanted, and that had “taken something away” from the joy of Christmas.
“We were so amazed by the family we got - there was no greed in that list. Their needs were basic and their wish list was minor - small stuff like movies and games. We were thrilled that there was nothing on the list that we couldn’t have gotten,” said Evans.
For Evans and her family the experience brought a new meaning to Christmas this year, and they will do it again next year, if they are in the same fortunate position.
Families receiving the Christmas gift hampers are, in the case of the Rowan House, clients. In the case of the OHFRC, families are referred to the program through school counsellors, ministers, neighbours, other family members and sometimes the family hears of the program themselves.
Sherri Mullen, coordinator with the OHFRC, said that some families have to swallow their pride to ask for help, and do so for the kids. Others know it’s tough, but embrace the support of the community.
When they pick up the gift hampers, they are overcome with emotion.
“We have a lot of people in tears when they pick up,” said Mullen. “They’re overwhelmed that someone else cares; someone they don’t know.”
This year OHFRC has 57 families confirmed who will be receiving gift hampers, and could be up to 70 by Christmas Day. Both the OHFRC and the Rowan House serve families across the Foothills, and both Mullen and Gaudry are grateful for the support of the community.
“We know we’ve done everything we can to make sure we have some happy families over Christmas, and nobody will go without – that are on our books, anyway,” said Gaudry.
“It makes you feel good. And there’s not much in this job that makes you feel good.”
Rowan House Emergency Shelter runs on the support of the community year-round. Cheques can be mailed to Box 610, Black Diamond, T0L 0H0. For more information call (403) 933-3370. They cannot take donations of clothing or household goods due to lack of storage.

Sadina Petermann takes singing national anthems seriously. She was picked to sing at the NFR in Las Vegas. photo submitted

Singer wows National Finals Rodeo with O Canada

By Bruce Campbell
staff reporter

Okotoks singer Sadina Petermann hit all the right notes and moved a sold-out crowd of 15,000 people in Las Vegas on Thursday – and she is delighted that her performance hasn’t picked up a lot of media exposure.
“When you do a great job of singing the national anthem, all you do is get a pat on the back,” Petermann said. “It’s only when you mess up like Roseanne Barr that you end up on the news or on Good Morning America.”
Petermann sang O Canada at the National Finals Rodeo during Canada Day on Thursday. She is the first woman to sing the Canadian national anthem at the NFR.
Although she has the versatility to sing back up for Celine Dion and Rita McNeil as well as be a contestant on Nashville Star, she has too much respect for O Canada and the Star Spangled Banner to try and personalize them.
She said she has seen too many national anthems ruined because sometimes a star may want to personalize things by adding a country twang or some funk.
“I try to sing the national anthem the way it is supposed to be sung,” she said. “National anthems are about country and making people proud. I take it very seriously... just because you have recorded an album doesn’t mean you can do it right.”
Petermann has been singing O Canada or the Star Spangled Banner for 19 years. She has sung O Canada at the Calgary Stampede for the past eight years and once sang the anthem in front of 55,000 people before a Blue Jays game.
Prior to going to the NFR, Petermann sang O Canada at the World Cup skiing at Lake Louise, singing in both French and English.
She was encouraged by Bob Tallman, a hall of fame rodeo announcer at the Calgary Stampede, to audition for the NFR – and her Las Vegas gig was confirmed in October.
She was inspired to begin singing the national anthem more than 18 years ago when she saw some singer with a flower in her hair do a less-than inspiring rendition of O Canada and the Star Spangled Banner.
“I said to myself: ‘I can do better than that.’” She then spent several weeks practicing the U.S. anthem, so she wouldn’t embarrass herself and more importantly, someone else’s country.
She said one of her most inspiring moments was when she sang at a prestigious car show in Auburn, Indiana 11 years ago.
“Right when I hit the high notes of the Star Spangled Banner, the F-18s flew overhead,” she said. “It gave me chills.”
At the NFR, she sort of shared the stage with an act that is coming to the Saddledome in early 2008.
“Brooks and Dunn were performing at the NFR,” she said with a chuckle. “Someone said I was opening for Brooks and Dunn.”