Christmas is the time of year when we can all do that little bit extra for family, our elders, those in-need, youth and the wider community.
Our Director of Communications and Stakeholder Relations, Dan Gold spoke with Natasha Thomson from Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Prince Albert to find out about one campaign we supported this year.
NT: What we do is enable life-changing, mentoring relationships to ignite the power and potential of young people.
We focus on building mentoring relationships between our volunteers and the young people in our programs group, mentoring one-on-one, mentoring all kinds of opportunities just to help young people give them that extra bit of support so that they can gain the confidence and the skills they need to succeed.
DG: What are some of the challenges that people face around Christmas time?
NT: People face so many challenges. There are of course financial challenges families feeling like they need more money and more things to give gifts and have their bountiful meals and whatnot.
There are also mental health challenges around this time of year, too. Some people feel stressed out and lonely. We try to be there in as many ways as we can for our families.
DG: We are very proud to be able to support you this year by making a donation so that you could go out and buy some turkeys, tell us a little bit about where these turkeys went and what the purpose was.
NT: We are so grateful to Rise Air for contributing to helping us give these turkeys to our families. We had a grant from the Saskatoon Foundation to buy some groceries, around a holiday hamper and Rise Air provided the turkeys for these hampers so that every family got a really wonderful holiday meal so they don’t have to worry about that for their family.
We also added some other things inside there, some board games, cookie mix and a cookie baking tray just so that families could have a nice time together and build some wonderful holiday memories together.
DG: If people wanted to find out more about your organization, where could they go?
NT: Well, the best place to learn about this, of course, is on our website princealbert.bigbrothersbigsisters.ca, we have information on there about our programs, about our impacts and they could also reach out and call us any time.
We’re also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Just reach out and look for us we’re there and willing to explain what we do and how people could help. Whereas two things that we always need to do the work that we do and one is volunteers and second is money. Because of course, we need to make sure that the volunteers are screened and trained and supported so that all the families are safe and well.
DG: Natasha Thomson, thank you so much for joining us here on the channels of Rise Air.
—
Rise Air is proud to support organizations across Saskatchewan that make a difference. If your organization is in need of support please visit our community involvement page.
Find out more about Big Brothers Big Sisters of Prince Albert.
