Our youth here in Brantford have been pretty active in their schools, as is our model.

When the lockdown first happened in the spring, many schools were in the process of gathering food and personal care items for us.

Those items were stuck in the schools until the end of the school year when principals were allowed to go back in. That resulted in a virtual wall of food!


Certainly there has been a decrease in the number of schools that have been participating since then due mainly to the safety protocols within the schools. Since school outings are not allowed, I have not been able to arrange any pilgrimages or trips to our store.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to have as much activity as we have seen! Many of the schools have changed their activities to fundraising as opposed to drives for physical items. That works out well for all concerned!

Having said that, there still have been a number of physical drives, mainly food, personal care items and warm clothing.
One school took it upon themselves to collect many hundreds of pairs of new socks in addition to a substantial cash donation.


My heart was warmed by one girl who chose to use all of her birthday monetary gifts to purchase food items for our neighbours in need.

Right now, a number of schools are engaged in Advent drives for us. I picked up a couple of van’s worth of items already last week, and am going to pick up another four van’s worth of items this week.

That is about it! It is very heartwarming to know that in times of need so many good people are stepping up to the plate…

With God’s help and our collective good will, we will all get through this!!

John, Paul, George and Ringo had it right when they said all you need is...

Peter Giordano Brantford youth