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Serving the Outaouais at Christmas

The Media Guignolée for Gatineau and the Outaouais area took place early this morning [Thursday, December 4) between 6:00am and 9:00am. My husband, Len, and I were with a great group of energetic volunteers stationed at the intersection of Blvd. St. Raymond and Blvd. des Trembles in Gatineau.

The Guignolée is an annual fundraiser for local food banks that takes place across the province of Quebec the first week of December. Volunteers were stationed at various street intersections in Gatineau and other cities and towns in the Outaouais and our group's collections go towards the Aylmer Sector food bank. Media and corporate sponsors were involved too all in effort to support local food banks to help make the Christmas season a little brighter for the most disadvantaged of our region.

Although the temperature was not that low, it was a damp and chilling morning but the volunteers were upbeat and the commuters on their way to work were very generous. In fact, donations this year exceeded the previous year. Our group collected $3967 compared to just under $3600 last year. The total for the food bank was $13985, almost $1700 more than 2013!... So, once again God has blessed the less fortunate through the heartwarming generosity of their fellow neighbours. This is what we are called to do and it's very humbling to be even a small part of it.

Thanks to our group leader, Michel Brazeau, for his energy and organizational skills, all the wonderful volunteers and the commuters who took the time to stop and make a donation as they headed off to work.

I encourage everyone who is able and hasn't already lined up some form of serving in the community to find something, even a very brief amount of time during the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season. I have to admit I'm not a "morning person" and getting up at 4:45 this morning to be at the site for 5:45 wasn't really exciting from that perspective but the small sacrifice was well worth it. I had a peaeful and happy feeling afterwards having forgotten any worries that I might have been focusing on prior to the morning's event. I do believe that it's a biblical truth that we receive more than we give in these situations, not necessarily financially but in some form or other. I think that maybe it's the after effect of God smiling down on us for having helped another human being".

Trudy

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