Paramedics helping to brighten holidays for kids around
Posted By PETE FISHER PFISHER@NORTHUMBERLANDTODAY.COM
Posted 2 months ago
Northumberland County paramedics are lending a hand helping to make Christmas brighter for children.
Three paramedics arrived at Grace Evangelical Missionary Church in Port Hope November 20 to pick up close to 400 boxes packages that will be distributed as part of the Operation Christmas Child Samaritan's Purse program.
Operation Christmas Child began on October 10, 1990, when Dave and Jill Cooke of England watched a television broadcast about Romanian
orphanages.
In 1993, Franklin Graham, international president of Samaritan's Purse, adopted Operation Christmas Child. Samaritan's Purse first delivered gift-filled shoe boxes to children in war-torn Bosnia and since then more than 68 million shoe box gifts have brought a message of hope, joy, and love to children in more than 130 countries. Last season, 713,294 shoe boxes were collected in Canada and distributed to children in more than 15 countries where they may be deprived of a Christmas.
The boxes are packed for children from ages two to 14 with products such as schools supplies, small toys such as stuffed animals, musical instruments, hair clips, or toy jewelry.
The nearly 400 boxes were collected from various schools and churches in the Port Hope area.
"Peterborough EMS where I also work has been involved for a couple of years and they've been pretty successful and they were looking to include surrounding communities," said Northumberland paramedic Jason Sterling.
"We looked at it and thought this would be a great program to be part of."
Although this is the first year Northumberland EMS has been involved with the program, Sterling said the paramedics who volunteered looked forward to helping out.
"It offsets the daily stress some of us face on the job and it's a way for us to give back to our community."
"In most cases when somebody sees an ambulance something bad has happened, so this is a case where people can associate an ambulance coming to a place for something good."
In previous years when the program has been run in the Port Hope area, Sterling said transportation of the boxes has been an issue.
"We have the infrastructure in place as far as trucks and people, so it's a good role for us.
"I'm trying to visualize in my mind how many boxes we can get in an ambulance," Sterling said with a smile.
After Port Hope the paramedics drove to Norwood to pick up more than 500 more boxes before the convoy ended its journey at the Peterborough EMS headquarters.
Like Santa on Christmas, Northumberland County EMS promise they will get the packages delivered, no matter how many trips it takes.
"We're going to see it through to the end and we're looking to stepping up the program next year."
