Viewpoints
Viewpoints is a blog in which different writers express their views and opinions on current topics. A new blog post is published about once every four weeks.
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Christmas evokes feelings and inspires people to help the poor
In our culture, it goes without saying that we eat well and give and receive presents at Christmas. However, this cannot be taken for granted, as there are thousands of families in Finland who cannot afford Christmas delicacies. Fortunately the Finnish people are willing to help and participate in Christmas collections.
Writer Sanna Räsänen from the Finnish Red Cross.
The proceeds from the Christmas Spirit collection go to low-income families with children. This year, the Finnish Red Cross and the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare are organising the collection for the 16th time. The funds donated to the Christmas Spirit collection will be used for gift cards for the families to buy Christmas foods from K-stores. This year, these 70-euro gift vouchers will be given to 18,000 families throughout Finland.
There are more than 130,000 children in Finland who live in families classified as poor. Single parentship, long-term unemployment, parents' short-term jobs, illnesses, disability or some other crisis in life may result in such a difficult financial situation that the family cannot buy anything festive for the Christmas table or any Christmas presents for the children.
The funds donated to the Christmas Spirit collection are given as food gift vouchers of 70 euros
to low-income families with children across Finland. Photo: Niklas Meltio
Companies' donations give the Christmas spirit to families
In addition to private donors, a large sum of money has annually been donated by the business sector. This year's collection is still underway, so I don't know the final result yet, but the total of the previous year has been exceeded every year in the history of the collection. Thanks to this, we have been able to increase both the value and the number of gift vouchers. In 2011, the total sum donated to the Christmas Spirit collection was 1,171,678 euros.
My responsibilities include the Facebook pages of the collection. We have received dozens of messages from mothers thanking for the gift voucher and telling us that for their families 70 euros is a lot of money which saves the Christmas.
It's great to participate in providing people with an opportunity to get a good Christmas spirit by giving a donation. And it's great to read how much joy and relief the gift vouchers bring to the Christmas of low-income families. This really gives me the Christmas spirit, too!
You can participate in the Christmas Spirit collection until the Christmas Eve.
• Donate a selected sum to the collection account with Nordea: 159630-202020.
• Donation by text message = message HJM to number 16499 (€10)
• Donation by phone = call 0600 16555 (€9.94 + network fee)
• K-Plussa points = you can donate your K-Plussa points to the Christmas Spirit collection. Register to the Oma K-Plussa service at www.plussa.com and select the Christmas Spirit collection as charity. Plussa points can be donated to the collection until 31 December 2013.
Writer Sanna Räsänen works as Communications Officer for the Finnish Red Cross. She has participated in organising the Christmas Spirit collection for several years.
