Altrusa Santa
An annual initiative that eases the loneliness of people who will spend Christmas Day without family was launched earlier this month.
Altrusa International Cambridge president Alison Burr with the tree for this year’s ‘Be a Santa to a Senior’ initiative.
Now into its third year, the Altrusa International Cambridge’s ‘Be a Santa to a Senior’ collaborates with an aged-care facility and Unichem Cambridge Pharmacy to collect and distribute gifts to some of the town’s seniors who won’t have family with them at Christmas.
It works like this – the aged-care facility identifies seniors who will be alone over the festive period and gives Altrusa ideas for suitable gift. That information is written on the back of a gift tag hanging on the Altrusa Christmas tree now up at Unichem Pharmacy… people pop in, grab a tab, purchase according to the information it carries and then put the unwrapped gift, together with the identifying gift card, in the basket next to the tree. Altrusa members then collect the gifts, wrap and label them and take them to the aged-care facility for distribution to the recipients on Christmas Day.
This year, Altrusa members will collect the gifts after 4pm on December 17 – a Wednesday.
The person behind the concept is nurse and Altrusa International Cambridge president Alison Burr. She had seen it operate successfully in the South Island and thought it would work well in Cambridge.
“The response over the past two years has been overwhelming,” Burr told The News. “We are aware that some seniors in Cambridge have no family on Christmas Day and want to brighten the season for some of them. We are very appreciative of the way in which the community supports this project.”
Decorating the ‘Santa to a Senior’ tree are, from left, Altrusa’s Maureen Blackstock, Unichem’s Michelle Lang, and Altrusa members Isabel Lang, Helen Larnach, Glenda Little and (kneeling) president Alison Burr. Photo: Viv Posselt
