North Shore seniors munch and mingle at the “Diners’ Club” Christmas turkey dinners
One of the busiest times for VCH’s Congregate Meals Program (“The Diners Club”) is a week in December when we serve traditional Christmas Turkey dinners to our clients.
This year, we had the highest number of attendees at all of the locations where we regularly serve meals to seniors, namely at
Capilano House at 1551 Bridgman Avenue, Anavets at 245 East 3rd Street and Twin Towers at 172 East 2nd Street, at the Parkgate Community Centre at 3625 Banff Court, as well as at our lunch location on Wednesdays at Mollie Nye House, 940 Lynn Valley Road.
Enjoying the Christmas spirit
All of our diners agreed that the meals provided this year by The Pantry (at the Holiday Inn) was the best turkey dinner that was served in years. Our seniors were able to munch and mingle, enjoy the Christmas spirit and visit with their neighbours and friends in a festive atmosphere. Diners at Anavets and Twin Towers were entertained by local guitarist John Cronin who played favourite festive tunes for all to sing and hum along. Our program’s volunteers did a wonderful job in making sure that all of our diners could enjoy a hot meal and beverage which were served with plenty of smiles and Christmas cheer.
Unprecedented numbers dine
Due to serving an unprecedented number of diners at Twin Towers, we did not have enough turkey dinners left to offer to our hard-working volunteers, but thanks to the generosity of Rusty Demehri, owner of Panago Pizza on Dollarton, our volunteers fuelled up with a slice of pizza before helping the hostess to tidy up the facilities.
Thanks to donations from Affordable Housing, Bonni Devlin with the (VCH) Seniors Supported Housing Program and in-kind donations from Lower Lonsdale local merchants, we had raffle prizes for almost all of the 85 seniors at Twin Towers and 45 seniors at Anavets. Thanks go to Ruth Warwick, the Twin Towers volunteer liaison who tirelessly solicited most of the donations (which tallied over $1,000). We are grateful to all who donated to make these Christmas Turkey dinners a special occasion for our seniors.
Celebrating 30 years
“In 2017 we are celebrating a milestone for the Congregate Meals Program which has been in existence for 30 years,” says Andrea Winterbottom, Program Assistant at Parkgate Community Health Centre. “We are excited that our celebrations will happen at the same time as the nationwide Canada 150 years celebrations and we will report on some of the planned events soon. We hope that you will be able to join us in the festivities to come.”
For more information about our program, contact Andrea Winterbottom at 604-904-6483.