BY SCOTT MOORE, REALTOR | November 6, 2026
This is the third year in a row that I have promoted the Christmas Cheer Board’s Feed-A-Family Program on this blog.
I’m happy to do this again because delivering a hamper directly to a family in our community has been a key part of my family’s holiday tradition for close to 20 years now.
The Christmas Cheer Board facilitates hampers via their Feed-a-Family program. Once you register as a sponsor, the Cheer Board will match your family (or workplace, sports team, fantasy football league, book club, etc) with an individual family that has qualified to receive a hamper. You can specify the size of the family you want to support during the registration process and provide other preferences, like neighbourhood, single parent, pensioner, etc.
Once you are assigned your family, the Cheer Board tells you the names and ages of the kids in the family and gives you their contact info and a grocery list.
Next, you purchase and wrap a gift in the $20 range for each child, buy the groceries on the list, and deliver the hamper directly to the family right before Christmas.
It usually costs between $200-$300 (with tax receipt provided once you submit your receipts to the Cheer Board by Dec 31st). If your budget is lower, requesting a small family could get the cost in the $150 range.
The grocery list includes some of the ingredients for a Christmas dinner, like turkey, stuffing, packaged gravy, plus a number of pantry staples (pasta, flour, oatmeal, etc). We always add in a number of extra fresh items too, like potatoes, onions, fruit, milk, eggs, etc.
Over the years, we’ve dropped off hampers to many different families—some particularly memorable ones were a young couple with newborn twins, a family that had a freshly harvested deer in the yard awaiting the butcher, a pregnant mom that spoke only Japanese, a single dad with five girls, and many more.
All of these families were getting by, but I doubt many of them had much extra. I don’t think any of them would have been able to have much of a holiday celebration without this hamper, and I’m sure the pantry items make life easier right into January.
The secret here is that it isn’t just a gift for their family, but it’s a gift for your family too. My wife and I have always involved our kids in the shopping, preparing and delivery of the hamper. Doing this for people that we don’t know is one of the ways we teach our own kids about generosity, responsibility, and gratitude. They know that part of the way we celebrate Christmas is by including others in our larger community, and that our duty as people with the resources to enjoy a celebration is to make sure to share with others.
Where can I register to sponsor a hamper?
You can complete a registration form to sponsor a family here, or call The CCB at 204-989-5680.
What is the Christmas Cheer Board?
The Christmas Cheer board is a registered charitable organization and has been operating for over 100 years.
Volunteers from diverse backgrounds donate their time to assemble and deliver food and toys to those in need. Each year they rely on vacant and available warehouses to operate out of for the months of November & December.
There are also many other ways to support the Christmas Cheer Board’s work - as a volunteer or a donor and more.
Visit The Christmas Cheer Board’s website for more information on how to get involved.
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Want to visit the archives? Here are my 2024 and 2025 pitches for the Feed-A-Family program.