Today we went to northern Scarboro to give gifts to underprivileged children for Christmas. The Toronto Star has a Christmas Fundraiser where companies and people donate gifts such as book, board games and toy. They also donate clothing like sweaters, mittens and scarfs. Then they send it in a box so that the scouts can deliver them to the children.
The Toronto Sun Santa Claus Fund was founded in 1906 by Joseph E. Atkinson who knew poverty first-hand when his father passed after a tragic accident and his mother had to raise 8 children all alone.
As an adult living as a prosperous publisher for the Daily Sun, Atkinson felt obliged to help relive the agony facing many of Toronto's poor at the start of the 1890s depression.
In Joseph's report he found 198 families (472 people) living in one-room dwellings. In visits to 4,696 house, health inspectors found 45 tuberculosis families, 390 houses were absolutely unfit for life, 1,348 homes without drains where waste and slop were thrown into yards, wall soaking wet and overflowing outdoor 'privies'.
The inspectors also found unlit, airless rooms and one where a family of 11 would crowd into 3 dank rooms with 3 dogs and chicken
When Joseph was a child, he went to a frozen pond and watched children skate, when an woman came over and asked him why he wasn't skating and the told his sad story. So the woman went and bought him a pair of skates and he will never forget the warmth of getting a gift from a stranger. So when became the founder of the Toronto Star in 1892 he made a promise to himself to help the children in poverty like he was.
It was a great experience and I am so grateful that my dad has a good job and can support our family from Singapore.
The end.
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