While it is often nice to receive greeting cards for Christmas, birthdays, graduations or virtually any other special event, one is often left with the dilemma of what to do with the cards once the event is finished.
A small but dedicated group of volunteers in Westlock has found a way to put those garbage-bound cards to good use: They turn them into calendars for needy Africans.
“They don’t get calendars like we do from the grocery shop or the bank. They don’t have many calendars in Chad,” said Janet MacDougall, one of the group’s members, and in a sense, the group’s inspiration.
MacDougall spent 40 years doing missionary work in Chad. When she returned to Westlock in 2005, she and some other like-minded residents of the community got together to help make a difference for some communities on the other side of the world.
The group gets single-sheet calendars printed every year, and using donated greeting cards, gives each calendar a unique image. Lu Krikke, one of the group’s organizers, said they send out about 10,000 calendars every year.
“For most Chadians, it’s their only timepiece,” she said.
Furthermore, they collect used or damaged bed sheets, rip them into strips, and roll them into bandages to send to medical facilities. They send out thousands of such bandages every year.
Krikke said the group gets together to perform this service simply because they see the need, and feel compelled to help to fulfill that need.
“I correspond with somebody in the States who corresponds with all the missionaries to get the needs,” she said. “When you read a letter and find out what a need there is, it just encourages us to do it more. What we waste, they can us.”
The waste that is so prevalent in our society is something that really struck MacDougall when she returned to Canada.
“It’s a very affluent society after a third world country,” she said. “It’s a shock. We have too much.”
She questions the value of having as much as we do, specifically after having seen how people in other, much poorer parts of the world live.
“Despite the fact that they have nothing, they’re contented people in third world countries. Things don’t make you happy,” she said.
The group meets in the morning of the first Tuesday of every month at the Westlock Gospel Chapel. Anyone is welcome to come help out for the morning.
The group is also always looking for donations, which can also be dropped off at the church.
“They can bring the stuff to the chapel and just tell the secretary it’s for the missionary group, and I’ll get it,” Krikke said.
