Eston’s Santa’s Hut: Small Town, Big Love!
Story and photos by Jenelle McLean
Like many rural Saskatchewan communities, Eston may be a small town, but it sure knows how to make up for its lack of population with its big love. Once again, Santa’s Hut was a boundless success this year, simply because our community came together to make it that way in true small-town fashion.
Santa’s Hut is a long-standing local tradition beginning in 1987 with volunteers from the West Central Crisis Board. The premise was to gather gifts for all ranges of ages and provide a place for children to experience the independence and excitement of “shopping” for their family on their own. For the initial three years, the program was run out of Kindersley, and all participating communities would go door to door canvassing for used items. They would amalgamate their donations; then, each community would take turns bringing the items to their different towns and allowing the children to shop. By year three, there were not enough donations to fulfill the needs for Kindersley, Eston, Elrose and Rosetown to all access the same program. In 1990 Eston began their own Santa’s Hut, a welcomed and well-loved tradition ever since.
Many loving hands have led this program throughout the years. Amanda Lonnberg and Joni McLean have been at the forefront of Santa’s Hut for the past three years. This year they had a team of a dozen volunteers who helped them with everything from pricing items, setting up gifts, taking the children around to shop for all the people on their wishlists, and wrapping presents. This group of big-hearted volunteers, also known as Santa’s Elves, helped nearly one hundred and fifty local children access Santa’s Hut this year. Through soliciting efforts, they gathered many donations of gifts to sell and money to help purchase additional items. These gifts are then sold to the kids at a substantially reduced price ranging from fifty cents to five dollars. Wall art, golf balls, barbies, slime, jewelry, baby clothes; nearly anything under the sun (and under a reasonable price range) was available to buy. One hundred percent of proceeds from the purchase of these items go towards the West Central Crisis Centre, which means Santa’s Hut was able to raise $1552 from the event this year.
Christmas is the spirit of giving, and what a fantastic way to teach our children this lesson. The excitement is pliable as the children gather in the halls awaiting their turn to shop for gifts they can afford, eager to find the perfect item for someone special in their lives. They leave, bursting in excitement at the treasures they found for those they love. One shopper, Ara Morrice (9), said her favourite part about Santa’s Hut is “shopping for other people.” Her older sister Alexa Morrice (13), who was helping Ara shop, said she loves “the Christmas feeling” and “seeing everyone happy to buy stuff for their family.” If you ask any volunteer, Santa’s Hut is an enormous amount of work. Still, they all agree it is worth it when they see the contagious joy these children share as they experience the gift of giving.
Thank you to our community for making this program possible and our volunteers for helping it all run smoothly. Santa’s Hut is nothing short of an immense contribution to and from our community, and we are grateful to all of those who help make it possible.
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