Winnipeg low-income families make sure everyone has warm holiday meal

Despite not having much to spare, a family in Winnipeg is gathering donations to make sure people in their community have warm meals to celebrate the holidays.

Kat and Corey Greer say the excitement most people feel as the holidays approach – getting together with family to eat delicious food – is not felt by all.

They want to change that.

“Not everybody has a warm meal so we want to make sure that we can help as many people as possible have that,” Kat said.

“We like to do a warm meal for the community. We like to cook and have all the fixings and have it in take-out containers and just give it out to our neighbours.”

The Greers, who live in Winnipeg’s Weston neighbourhood, are organizers at Weston Community Mutual Aid. Although the pair don’t have much money to spare, especially since Kat was laid off earlier this year, it hasn’t stopped them from gathering donations to give to other families.

“I like to do it because not only is it the right thing to do, we should be coming together in these trying times and uniting together,” said Corey.

Tara Martinez, who at times struggles financially, benefits from Mutual Aid. She says the community has been rallying together to make sure no one gets left behind.

“It’s like stone soup, that’s what it is,” Martinez said. “It’s stone soup. We just pitch in what we can.”

Rechie Valdez, Canada’s minister of small business, says the GST tax break, which kicked in this weekend, should be helpful for individual Canadians.

“The GST tax break is gonna help Canadians afford groceries, winter clothing, holiday essentials, kids clothing, kids toys,” Valdez said.

“I’m sure it is helping people with toys and some of those other bigger ticket items,” Kat Greer added.

Open Gallery 3 items

Just a few days away from Christmas, the Greers are still looking for donations of turkeys, drinks and sweet treats.

They post frequent updates about items in need on their Facebook page. Meanwhile they say cash donations are always welcome and can be sent via email.