The parish hall in Fort-Coulonge was bustling on Friday night as dozens of volunteers helped put together more than 100 food baskets as part of the annual “guignolée”, the Christmas food drive.
One of the organizers Ken Hobbs said that they send numerous teams of volunteers into the community (some singing carols) to collect donations on Friday, which are then sorted and distributed at the hall. He estimated that the tradition has been going on since the late 1970s, and while it was started by the local Knights of Columbus, anyone is welcome to lend a hand.
“Anyone from Mansfield or Fort-Coulonge is allowed to receive a food basket, and we take those two municipalities and we divide them up into zones, we’ve got about 12 zones,” he said Thursday afternoon. “Tomorrow night they’ll all be going out around 5 o’clock. They’ll be going door to door, people can donate money or they can donate food. Once all of those teams have completed all their addresses in their respective zones, they all go to the parish hall beside the church and the food is brought in, it’s all reviewed to make sure nothing is out of date, and then it’s put into the boxes. The following day, whatever we pick up on Friday night is complemented by a basic list that we buy.”
This year, he said that they had 102 baskets for roughly 280 recipients, of which, around 130 are children.
“It’s close to probably $300 per individual and if there’s a family involved, it’s that much more,” he said. “I’d say they’re getting $300 and up. It helps all these families a little bit around this time of year. The price of food has gone up but this will offset the burden of spending all that money on food.”
In addition to the numerous volunteers who travel around collecting donations, there’s a solid squad of at least 25 to 40 people in the hall sorting everything. Hobbs said that it’s a fun, social tradition for locals and newcomers alike.
“It’s the type of event where, if someone were newer to the community, if they were to get involved it’d be a great time to meet people,” he said. “You’re not necessarily going door to door, just being at the hall and seeing the people come in with the food and that. It’s one of those feel-good events that goes on.”
