More than 1,000 people came out to greet jolly old St. Nick at Santa’s Workshop last weekend.
The Community Parenting Coalition (CPC) has been hosting Santa’s Workshop for several years, giving families a chance to get into the Christmas Spirit with some fun activities.
“[The] Community Parenting Coalition is a committee of local agencies and volunteers that work collaboratively towards a common goal of coordinated planning, sharing resources, and assessing the community to meet the needs of children, youth, and their families,” said Krystle Kotyk, a program assistant with Family and Community Support Services, in an email interview.
Those agencies include Aim for Success, Dragonfly Family Day Home Agency, Family Resource Network, Brighter Futures, Kickstand Youth Hub and others, as well as some members at large.
“Families get a passport when they come in and every time they go to a station, they get a stamp,” says Susan Reich, the program manager for Aim for Success. “Once they get their stamps, then they come to the store to pick out gifts.”
Some of the stations included Fun with ECDC, writing a letter to Santa with the Drayton Valley Library, cookie decorating, a dance, decorating gift bags, and others. Meeting Santa also got children a stamp, and many stood in line to wait for their turn.
With the number of children in attendance, the cookie decorating station ran out of cookies. Santa will also be seeing a significant number of letters that came from the Workshop.
“The library had 500 kids write letters,” said Kotyk.
After families got their fill of pizza and filled out their passports, they got to visit Santa’s store to pick out gifts for loved ones, which were wrapped by volunteers.
Zoey Gallant, one of the children at the event, said she always enjoys coming to the Workshop with her mother, Sarah Gallant. This year, her favourite part of the visit was getting to pick out Christmas gifts.
“I got to go shopping at [Santa’s Store],” said Zoey. She said she picked out a gift for her dad, her grandma, and her grandpa once she had filled out her passport.
“It’s a fun way to start off the Christmas Season, I find,” said Sarah. “It’s the first little thing where they get to do the letters and go shopping for somebody other than themselves. It’s something we’ve really enjoyed since my oldest was a baby.”
Amanda Fynn, one of the mothers at the event, said it’s great to see events in the community that don’t cost families’ money to participate.
“It’s really nice to see organizations that are giving back,” said Fynn.
Fynn’s husband, councillor Ryan Fynn, says events like Santa’s Workshop are exactly what the community needs.
“This is what we need — the collaboration of organizations to put on events like this,” he said.
One of the Fynns’ sons, Bennett, said meeting Santa Claus was interesting.
“It just gives a giggle to your heart,” said Bennett.
Reich says the event wouldn’t be possible without the many volunteers that came forward from several organizations like the FMHS Warriors Rugby team, the Lin-Berry-Buck 4H Beef Club, ATB, members of Beehive Support Services, and other community members.
