With the cold weather settling in, many people are already making their holiday plans and starting their Christmas shopping. At a Martensville Church, they are doing just that. The Martensville Alliance Church is in its second year of running Club DJ, a Bible based club for kids ages 4-12. “Here they have the chance to hear stories, make really cool crafts, and play games,” Cindi Lefrancois said. Last year, during planning sessions, the idea to provide a “free” store for the kids involved in Club DJ was suggested and from there the ‘Kids Club Christmas Store’ was created. The idea of this is to be able to provide an opportunity for the kids involved to “purchase” gifts for their families. “We reached out to our community asking for donations and received an abundance of items to stock our store. The night was a huge success and 20 kids involved in Club DJ had a blast shopping and were all so excited to bring their present’s home wrapped and ready to put under the tree,” Lefrancois added.
This year will be the second year that the store is being offered and will be available to the approximately 25 kids that attend the Club regularly. An addition to this year’s event will be a gift wrapping station.
The ‘store’ is only possible through donations from the community, so organizers are looking for donations of gently used items for the kids to ‘purchase’. “Items like toys, jewelry, home décor, tools, ties, etc. We would also love donations of socks, candy or other treats, toiletries such as lotions, body care items, nail polish, lip balms, etc. but we ask that, given the nature of these items, they be new and unused. We would also be open to gift certificates and would happily include business cards if any businesses want to donate to us,” Lefrancois explained.
Donations will be accepted until December 1st in order to ensure there is time to set up the ‘store’ for the event, which will be taking place December 7th. To make a donation, contact the Martensville Alliance Church at (306) 931-2434 or donations can be dropped off at the church on Thursday nights between 6:00pm & 6:30pm.
