Goats, latrines, soccer for peace, baking classes and more
Your last-minute Christmas giving items are ready
All too often, the Christmas season becomes focused on what we want to get. This year, explore MCC’s Christmas Giving opportunities to provide meaningful and convenient gifts that honour your loved ones and help our global neighbours
Gift options include school supplies, latrines, soccer for peace, baking classes and more. Every gift is used by MCC partners who work directly with people in affected communities to create positive change.
For those who would simply like to give where the need is greatest, MCC offers an option called gift of hope. Or if you can't decide, try this quiz!
The online Christmas giving options can be sorted by gift category and donation range, making it easy to find the right gift. Here are just a few of the available gift ideas:
Gifts of education
Are you shopping for a teacher or someone passionate about education? Consider a gift of education in their honour, like stocking a classroom with paper, pencils and crayons to let students explore their creativity in the classroom.
A bigger gift of $520 can provide a year of kindergarten for Syrian and Palestinian refugee children.
This 5-year-old girl is one of many Syrian and Palestinian refugees from Syria and Lebanon who are able to attend free pre-school and kindergarten for free because of MCC's support. (She is not named for security reasons.)MCC photo
Another important gift opportunity helps keep girls in school. Around the world, many young women miss days of school each month or stop attending at all, due to a lack of feminine hygiene products. This $20 gift provides students with soap and sanitary pads – a simple solution that creates an opportunity for the next generation of girls to write their own future.
Gifts of food and water security
To honour loved ones and friends who care deeply about communities with unequal access to food and water, MCC has multiple ways to give.
You or your whole family could buy the gift of an entire well for an underserved community. A well improves health and hygiene and reduces the burden on women and children who are often tasked with walking long distances to collect water.
“Our well is a blessing,” says Molita Nacuduzi, a participant in an MCC-supported clean drinking-water project with the Christian Council of Mozambique (CCM) in the small village of Chitongo, Mozambique, in 2019. “It is good for us all, [especially] for us girls who used to make that long and dangerous walk each day.” MCC photo/Paul Shetler Fast
An entire well costs $4,000, but purchasing a portion of one is also an option. Your gift and others will be combined to buy a well.
For a small gift or stocking stuffer, givers can provide nourishing, beautifying and sustainable fruit trees for $10. Your gift could be a guava, papaya or olive tree that provides a community with vitamin-rich nutrition for years to come.
Gifts of peace and welcome
MCC offers several opportunities to give in honour of friends or family members who want to help refugees and displaced people.
These gifts help provide a warm welcome for newcomers to Canada, like Ma They Yare, who came from Myanmar (Burma) with her five children through MCC Canada’s refugee resettlement program.
For a smaller budget item, gifts of welcome to help asylum seekers and other immigrant families are available. These gifts will help people understand immigration processes and complete appropriate paperwork, as well as support legal training for professionals who work with immigrants.
Angie Batiz and her daughter Angelie Batiz immigrated to the U.S. from Honduras. With the help of the New York Mennonite Immigration Program which came out of a partnership between MCC and the New York City Council of Mennonite Churches, Batiz and her daughter have been empowered to apply for documents to live, work and go to school legally in Bronx, New York.MCC photo/Frederick Yocum
Last year, MCC worked with hundreds of groups across Canada to resettle more than 600 refugees.
After you have made your selections, you can personalize e-cards to surprise loved ones with the gifts purchased in their honour. These gifts of compassion will bring joy to your community wherever they are.
