Those who live at AVENS don’t always have family nearby to come and visit them over the holidays.
But that’s where the community comes in and many people came through once again to make sure those who live there enjoy some of the Christmas cheer.
The annual Tree of Giving returned for another year, which gave residents of Yellowknife, organizations and businesses a chance to help brighten some days for the 57 people who call AVENS home.
Daryl Dolynny, AVENS’ chief executive officer, said everything begins by sitting down with each AVENS resident to see what they’d like to get for Christmas.
The wishes are printed in the form of a postcard to Santa and are hung on the tree.
“We’ll write down what each resident would like and put that up on the tree,” he said. “They don’t last long — we usually sell out of the wishes within hours of them being advertised.”
Dolynny said even after all of the wishes are gone, people still want to provide cash donations and those are collected to go into a fund to help with programming.
“We could do coffee for residents, we could stop into Mary Brown’s to get some chicken, or we could help with outings to places like the (North Country) stables,” he said.
Between $4,000 and $6,000 has been raised in years past through that, he added.
One group which took on a wish this year was the Summit Air Spitfires U13 girls hockey team. They dropped into AVENS on Dec. 17 following a team practice to fill some space under the tree.
Head coach Ryan Nichols said he gathered up the team following ice time and drove them around town to pick up whatever was on the wish list they took.
“Our list was for someone who was into photography and Reese’s peanut butter cups,” he said. “They were a long-time educator and we ended up dropping off about six or seven bags of gifts.”
He said it was a way for his players to give a little back to the community as they’ve done so much to help them out this season.
“We want to instill that sense of giving back at a young age,” he said. “We want the girls to be the best on and off the ice. Christmas is a time to receive gifts, but it’s also about thinking of others.”
“What a great group of young ladies they are,” said Dolynny of the Spitfires’ donation. “It adds to the humanity of the holidays and those young ladies are a testament to that.”