As the holiday season approaches, it’s time to reflect on the spirit of giving. This year, consider making a meaningful impact on those in our Metro Vancouver community by donating to families, individuals, and seniors in need. Some helpful options include sponsoring a family and donating holiday hampers, ensuring everyone gets to experience the joy the holidays bring with gifts and food.
Holiday Hampers and Adopt-A-Family Programs in Metro Vancouver
Surrey Christmas Bureau
Adopt-a-Family Program What you provide: Christmas breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as age-appropriate gifts for the family you are matched with. Grocery gift cards can be purchased with sufficient funds to purchase groceries for the three meals as opposed to the hamper itself. Details: The Surrey Christmas Bureau matches individuals and businesses with a family in need with a child under 18 during the holiday season. Sponsors should deliver gifts and hampers no later than December 18th, unless otherwise arranged with the family. View guidelines and complete the sponsor application form.
Covenant House
Backpack Campaign What you provide: Help fill a backpack with kindness for youth ages 16 to 24. Details: These backpacks will be gifted during the Covenant House holiday party. Learn more about what items are needed and how to contribute.
Caring Calendar What you provide: Sponsor a day or activity to make the holidays a little brighter. Fulfil the Caring Calendar items for youth ages 16 to 24. Details: Much like the tradition of an advent calendar, the Caring Calendar program provides youth in Covenant House care with an activity or item each day from December 1st to 25th. Learn more about needed items.
Burnaby Community Services
Senior Hamper Program Burnaby Christmas Bureau What you provide: Donation of a food hamper or alternatively, a gift card with sufficient funds for purchasing food for a senior with low income. Details: The Burnaby Christmas Bureaumatches sponsors with a senior in need. Be sure to set up a delivery date with your matched senior before December 18th. Applications for the Senior’s Gift Hamper sponsors are open.
As any Vancouver Canucks fan can tell you, attending a home game at Rogers Arena isn’t always as fun and exuberant as the 8-1 romp over the Edmonton Oilers in the October 11 season opener. It’s hockey. The final score is never guaranteed. However, renting a fully catered suite at this 18,910-capacity venue is one way to virtually guarantee a winning night out. Here’s a snapshot to envision what it’s like.
Canucks Suite – Photos by Lucas Aykroyd
The Suite Life at a Vancouver Canucks Hockey Game
Flash back to January 20, 2023. The Canucks are in turmoil. Facing the Colorado Avalanche, they’re heading for their ninth loss in 11 games. Coach Bruce Boudreau is about to get canned and replaced by Rick Tocchet after weeks of rumors.
Yet life is pretty sweet in suite 245 at Rogers Arena. Rocky Mountaineer, a luxury railway company headquartered in Vancouver, is holding an event to showcase their product to local travel journalists in the 20-capacity corner suite on Level 200.
Western Canada’s largest craft fair Circle Craft Holiday Market returns to the Vancouver Convention Centre from November 8 to 12. The market offers visitors the opportunity to connect with skilled artisans, watch live demonstrations, and enjoy festive food and drink while getting a head start on holiday shopping.
Circle Craft Holiday Market 2023
Date: November 8 to 12, 2023
Location: Vancouver Convention Centre (1055 Canada Place, Vancouver)
Admission: Tickets can be purchased online for $16 per adults and $12 per youth and senior. Children 12 and under get in free.
Save %50 off on tickets after 5:00pm on November 8, 9, and 10
A beloved Vancouver tradition, the Circle Craft Holiday Market draws artists, makers and craftspeople from Canadian coast to coast. This year’s event showcases 291 vendors from as far as Halifax throughout the Convention Centre space. Featured arts range from ceramics, glass, metals and wood to jewellery, textiles and paper. Packaged foods, bath and body products, and even skateboard art are also in the mix; this is a market that proves that no one is “impossible to buy for.” A full list of vendors is available online.
The 2023 market exhibitors comprise 24 “Budding Artists”, 87 new vendors, and 42 members of the Circle Craft Co-op, an artist-run endeavour with its flagship store located on Granville Island year round. This year’s wares include Indigenous-made items, traditional crafts made modern, as well as a focus on sustainability, recycled materials, and non-gendered, size inclusive fashions.
The annual market, run since 2021 by Signatures Shows Ltd. and known simply as “Circle Craft”, has become a cherished event for tens of thousands of visitors from across the region. It’s a gathering place for those seeking beautiful, handcrafted items for their homes or thoughtful gifts for loved ones – whether that gift is a Grizzly Bear abalone pendant, a jean jacket embroidered with Ukrainian stitch work, or a hand-poured 100% soy candle.
Stay up to date by following Circle Craft on Facebook and Instagram.
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Every life is precious, no matter how long it shines
When a family embarks on the journey of parenthood, they are not prepared for the unimaginable—the earth-shattering news that their child has a life-threatening diagnosis.
Premia Family – Canuck Place Light a Life
Sam and Helen Premia were faced with difficult decisions about their daughter Angelina’s care before they even had the chance to meet her. Angelina was diagnosed in utero with a rare neurodevelopmental genetic condition called Oral Facial Digital Syndrome – Type 1, which is classified as the most severe of eight different categories for this condition.
“Angelina was such a spirited, loving, hilarious soul, and a fighter by nature,” says Hannah, Angelina’s sister. “Her laugh and smiles were absolutely infectious and despite being non-verbal, she was always able to express herself so clearly, with a smile on her face and a hug for everyone around her. She was the sweetest little sister anyone could have ever asked for.”
Despite receiving a life-limiting diagnosis at birth, and the obstacles she faced in her short life, it was not until she turned 18 that Angelina was first introduced to Canuck Place Children’s Hospice. In June 2021, the Premias received the devastating news that Angelina had chronic kidney failure associated with her genetic condition. Without any curative options, Helen and Sam made the decision to pursue compassionate comfort care, prioritizing Angelina’s quality of life and making memories together as a family.
“This was the hardest decision we have ever had to make,” explains Helen. “The Canuck Place team was very professional, caring, and gave us all the information, helping us as we were trying to process everything. They made us feel very comfortable, walked us through all the options, and were very patient with us.”
As the only pediatric palliative care provider for children 0-19 in BC and the Yukon, Canuck Place walks alongside many families like the Premias, caring for children with life-threatening illnesses and the families who love them. Canuck Place services include medical respite and family support, pain and symptom management, a provincial 24-Hour Clinical Care Line, music and recreation therapy, education and art, grief and bereavement counselling, and end-of-life care. All at no cost to families.
Canuck Place provides care in-hospice from their two locations in Vancouver and Abbotsford, as well as community-based care in-hospital and in families’ homes.
As families face uncertainty with their child’s serious illness, many choose to have care in the comfort and familiarity of their home. To meet this need, Canuck Place provides support through consultations in-home, virtual care through the 24-Hour Clinical Care Line, and end-of-life care through the Enhanced Community Care program.
“Here at Canuck Place we know there’s a time and place for hospital, there’s a time and place for interventions and medicalized care,” explains Canuck Place Nurse Practitioner, Camara van Breemen. “But we also know there’s a time and place for comfort, for the child and family to be in the place and location where they feel safe and secure.”
In-home care looks different from day-to-day, family-to-family, depending on the unique needs of the child and the trajectory of their illness.
For the Premia family, it was important to honour Angelina’s request to spend her final days at home, surrounded by her loved ones. It was during this time, that Canuck Place nurse practitioner Rachel Neufeld and Camara supported the whole family as they navigated Angelina’s rapidly changing condition, from helping with dietary needs and medications, to pain management, and ensuring she was comfortable.
“Camara and Rachel walked us through every single step and small change as Angelina’s health deteriorated. They always checked in on our family, and came to our home when we needed them,” says Helen. “We are so thankful to both Camara and Rachel. They come in our thoughts often when we think of Angie.”
As Angelina neared end of life, Sam, Helen, and Angelina’s two sisters Hannah and Sharon, participated in memory-making together. They had professional photos taken and made a beautiful family video that they all cherish to this day. Canuck Place recreation therapists helped them make hand molds, and also pendant necklaces with Angelina’s fingerprint.
“It was only after receiving her fingerprint in a necklace following her passing that I can truly say how cherished that piece is,” Hannah explains. “It brings me comfort knowing I have a little piece of Angelina physically with me still.”
Through cherished memories, shared experiences, and sacred mementos, Canuck Place helps children and families make precious memories together, and celebrate life.
“When I looked at the pendant or hold the hand molds, it’s like holding my baby’s hand again and it brings back so many sweet memories of my angel,” shares Helen.
Light a Life with Canuck Place
Losing a child to a life-threatening illness is a journey. Following Angelina’s end-of-life care, her family continues on the Canuck Place program through bereavement counselling. On average, a family remains in grief care for an average of three years following the devastating loss of their child. The Premia family takes comfort in knowing that when their grief feels unbearable, or the emotions too big, Canuck Place counsellors are there to help them find strength in tender places.
At Canuck Place, every life is precious no matter how long it shines, and more families like the Premias need Canuck Place’s support. This past year alone, Canuck Place saw a 31% increase in community-based, in-home and in-hospital care.
From now until December 31, every gift received this holiday season will be triple matched, thanks to generous partners. With you, Canuck Place helps short lives shine bright. Light the way. Give today.
Enjoy a holiday experience like no other as the Bright Nights train is back on track in Stanley Park this 2023 holiday season! Ride the train through the magical forest, alight with thousands of sparkling lights, all while supporting a great cause.
You can still visit the site by donation without a train ticket, and enjoy the beautiful light displays and entertainment in the festive forest setting.
Bright Nights in Stanley Park
Date: November 30, 2023 to January 6, 2024
Open nightly from 4:00pm to 10:00pm
Closed December 25
Location: Pipeline Road in Stanley Park (follow signs to Miniature Railway)
Admission to the site: Free, suggested donation to the BC Burn Fund.
Train Tickets: For purchase online starting November 9, 2023. Train tickets are not sold on-site and must be purchased in advanced for designated ride time.
UPDATE Nov 29th: Bright Nights Extended! A successful Technical Safety BC inspection confirmed the use of one locomotive and five train carriages. An additional 17,000 tickets will be available exclusively online beginning Thursday, November 30 at 9:00am. More info here.
You can also bid on a 5-pack of tickets in the Stanley Park Ecology Society’s silent auction online here until December 15th.
Visitors can once again ride through the Stanley Park winter wonderland on the Bright Nights miniature railway, which was not operational last year due to mechanical issues.
Bright Nights Train in Stanley Park Back on Train
“We are thrilled that the Stanley Park Train will be operational for Bright Nights,” Mayor Ken Sim said in a press release today. “We extend our heartfelt appreciation to community champions for their generous philanthropic support in the restoration of this beloved holiday attraction. Specifically, we express our gratitude to the Beedie Foundation, Peter and Joanne Brown Foundation, Diamond Foundation, The Lyall Family, Jeff Stibbard, and The 625 Powell Street Foundation for their invaluable contributions.”
“We understand how cherished Bright Nights is for Vancouver families, and we are delighted that the train will be a feature of this event. We appreciate the patience and support of the community as the train’s restoration work was completed. We are excited for families to come and enjoy Bright Nights and create memories for years to come.”
The vintage 1961 train equipment required specialized parts that were challenging to acquire and necessitated specialized work to complete. The restoration work was accomplished through a collective effort involving staff and private donors who generously funded the project.
Without a Train Ticket
Take in the vibrant colours of thousands of twinkling lights throughout the forest. Stroll through the plaza to enjoy even more lights, whimsical displays, and the crowd-pleasing vintage fire truck. Make sure you check out the live entertainment on your way to the North Pole workshop, where you can snap a pic with Santa and his fire fighter friends.
BC Professional Fire Fighters’ Burn Fund
A favourite holiday tradition for the community and fire fighters alike, Bright Nights is also the single largest fundraiser for the BC Professional Fire Fighters’ Burn Fund, which provides life-saving, life-supporting, and life-enriching services to burn survivors and their families from across the province. The Park Board has donated more than $2.5 million to the Burn Fund since Bright Nights began in 1998.
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