Everyone Deserves a Birthday Celebration

by Rev Julie Charland

CSMC kindly awarded a $500 Beverly Fenerty-McKibbon Pastoral Development Grant for birthday kits for the Casselman Crysler St-Albert Food Bank (CCS Food Bank) and also donated another $500 directly to the food bank to help answer the needs of the community.

Motivation

The project came to mind after seeing a video on social media of a similar idea. As a couple, my husband and I have supported the food bank regularly in the past and we just knew that the birthday kits would bring joy to a visit often made with mixed emotions. I first talked to a volunteer about the idea, and she showed enthusiasm; the president of the Casselman Food Bank reiterated that people getting help through them also needed hope and joy.

I was motivated to embrace this project because as a former schoolteacher and principal, I have seen first-hand how celebrating birthdays can bring so much joy to someone’s life. The challenge is not just getting a boxed cake mix but also having what is needed to bake it and make an event of the occasion. Those are memories that transcend beyond the actual cake to make the person feel special.

Challenges

When the project was submitted, I estimated costs based on what I found in my village. From there, I assumed that with a bit more shopping, I would be able to get some better prices. I therefore committed to doing 60 birthday kits for the food bank. When it was time to do the actual purchases, I found that prices had gone up, that some items were taxed, and that others had to be replaced as no longer available. I did not let that deter from my objective of 60 kits. The actual expenses were $166 over the $500 budget, an amount I was happy to contribute from my honorarium for officiating weddings.

The volunteers had informed me that their clientele was roughly half French and half English. As I was looking for 60 pieces of each element, it soon became clear that the boxes could not all be identical. Some things were more expensive in one language than the other. In the end, the kits included the items needed to bake and decorate the cake, balloons, and a banner for the room.

Another challenge was to ensure that the expiry dates of the edible elements were distant enough to allow distribution over many months. The easiest way was to deliver sets of the kits two months apart with the expiry date indicated on each one. This also helped the food bank with distribution and space needed to store the birthday kits.

Rewards

Amongst other happy instants such as delighting store workers and spending time with a friend assembling the birthday kits, two moments stand out from this project. The first was receiving a call from the president of the food bank to thank me and gush over the detail and attention that went into the kits. She now fully understood the concept and was so impressed. The second reward came while making the final delivery of the birthday kits. One of the volunteers stopped me and showed me photos that she had received of a client’s son stirring the cake batter in the pan with a smile up to his ears. She confirmed that the kits were always received with large smiles.

In conclusion, 62 birthday kits were delivered to the food bank. This has been a worthwhile project, and we have decided as a couple to pursue our contribution to the food bank in this way. We now have the knowledge to make the kits enticing and cost effective. More than that, we know that challenges still lie ahead for many and the birthday kits represent hope and joy in otherwise difficult moments.