
HVPOA’s Holiday Giving Weekend Report 2024
What a weekend! Steady snow reminded us that Santa is on his way and our community again displayed its generosity through a fabulous turnout for holiday giving!
With the help of our local Oro-Medonte Fire Department Station for all 3 events and numerous community volunteers, we collected:
- 227 toys and $2,345 in monetary donations to the Orillia Salvation Army through the Toy drive;
- 40 pounds of pet food plus supplies and $40 for the Comfy Cat Shelter and $300 for the Orillia SPCA from Saturday’s Candlelight Stroll; and
- 2,386 pounds of food, $225 in gift cards and $7,989 in monetary donations for the Salvations Army’s Orillia Food Bank plus an additional $3,450 in monetary donations directed to the Sharing Place in Orillia!!
In a note of thanks, the Salvation Army in Orillia “cannot say how much we appreciate all of the time that is put into these events…The number of folks we are helping has gone up significantly this year….625 families with food and toys, up about 60 families over last year.”
Many thanks to the leadership provided by Ken Linton with the Back Porch Boys for the Toy Drive, Rick & Claudia Boyd for the Candlelight Stroll, and Lisa Banks & Barb Shopland for the Food Drive. And they, of course, couldn’t have done it without their respective teams of community volunteers, too many to list here, but a few of whom are captured in the attached photos and others posted on our Valley Voice Facebook page.
A special thanks also goes to Tim Horton’s, Foodland. Horseshoe Resort, Vetta Spa, Horseshoe Valley Eye Care, Midhurst Landscaping, Roper Kick’in Grass and The Golf Zone for their generous donations of hot chocolate, timbits, cookies and prizes raffled off at Saturday night’s Candlelight Stroll.
What an amazing community we live in! Happy holidays to all!!!!




