Some members of the Williams Lake Stampede Association hit the trail yesterday (Monday, December 21st) to make Christmas merrier for some seniors in the Lake City.
The gifts were delivered to the residents living in Retirement Concepts, Caribou Place, and Dene House.
Williams Lake Stampede Association Vice-President, Tim Rolph, said the idea to do this came from a very young Grandson of a couple of Stampede members.
“He was sponsoring a grandparent at one of the homes so this little 3-year-old said, you know what, there’s somebody in a home that doesn’t have a grandchild or something so he bought him a few gifts and when we heard that we thought wow what an awesome way to give back to these people”.
Rolph added that supporting the seniors is definitely something we would continue to do down the road.
“We’ve always had a really good relationship with the Senior Villages in town”, Rolph said, “On a typical Stampede year, a few days before the rodeo our Queens will go and visit people at the different homes, our Rodeo Clown will get out and see them and sometimes the entertainment we have like trick riders, we’ll make they get out and visit the people who aren’t able to get out to the Stampede. A lot of these seniors in there are old-time ranchers and community people that have grown up with our Stampede and it means a lot to them to get a little piece of that given back to them”.
Rolph noted that they didn’t go out into the community for donations and explained where the gifts came from.
“We just contacted the different homes in town to kinda see what they needed and then we went out and purchased some of the items. There’s was everything from some of our own merchandise from the Stampede Association, to toiletries to some gift things”.
Rolph said when members arrived at the homes they were met at the door by staff who were really happy that the Stampede Association was able to reach out to the residents to help make their Christmas merrier.