Canada Post strike could lead to sharp drop in donations for local charities

Local charities are concerned about the impact the Canada Post strike will have on donations during the season of giving.

Non-profit organizations across Waterloo region say mail-in donations make up tens of thousands of dollars of the total funds collected during the Christmas season.

Scott Hamilton from United Way Waterloo Region says half of all their donations come through the mail during the months of November and December.

"This is the busiest time of year," Hamilton said. "My ask out there to our community would be to try to alter your own practices. If every year you've donated to a charity or United Way using a paper pledge form, maybe this is the year you want to try going online."

Kelly Fifield from the Salvation Army in Kitchener says the organization received about $60,000 through the mail last Christmas. She says they're trying their best to educate donors about the strike.

"We have to hope and pray that it is going to work," she said, urging donors to consider donating in other ways.

Faune Lang is the director of philanthropy at Food4Kids Waterloo Region. She says the organization is already short by $10,000 because of the postal strike.

Like members from other non-profit organizations, she's also asking people to remember to donate online, over the phone or in person.

"That [shortage] is significant, especially when we're talking about a non-profit agency like ours that is not funded by the government," Lang said, adding that the losses are expected to drastically increase as Christmas Day comes closer.

"We heavily rely on a lot of the mail system. A lot of our donors are still using cheque books and that's the way that we like to give, which is fantastic. So that directly hits us especially at this time of year when it's most needed."

Plans to hand deliver flyers

Hamilton says United Way Waterloo Region has already printed 2,000 newsletters they were hoping to send to potential donors during the Christmas season. Those envelopes have been sealed and stamped and will be wasted if they can't be sent out before the end of this holiday season.

"One option we're looking at, and we've been talking about it for a while, is hand delivery," he said, adding it may be an opportunity to show volunteers are active in the community.

Lang is worried that not being able to mail out newsletters will directly impact their Giving4Kids holiday campaign.

"Our campaign has just kicked off and unfortunately now anyone who doesn't have an email address isn't going to get that copy," she said.

"Our incredible team is now going to step in and then have to hand deliver and drive these newsletters out to make sure that they're in the hands of others in the community."

But for other organizations like the Salvation Army in Kitchener, hand delivery is no longer an option.

"We've had volunteers put those envelopes together, getting everything ready to go and we have dropped them off with Canada Post," Fifield said.

"But it is our understanding that they are sitting in the warehouse at Canada Post and they have not gone out yet. So not only are we not seeing the donations come in, but it also took time as well as finances to put those things together in order to get them out and that hasn't been able to go out yet."

Growth in demand

Diane McLeod is the CEO of the Cambridge Food Bank. She says the strike will directly impact their ability to address a growing need for support in the community.

"Typically during the holiday season, we would see a busy month for us with about 800 families coming through," she said, adding that the need has greatly increased since then.

"Last month in November, we saw 2,049 families come through... [and] we see a bit of a spike at Christmas time. So that's a really significant increase for us."

She says they spend about $400,000 on food that is not typically donated like milk and eggs. Some of the money also goes toward helping fund various workshops like a health and wellness program for more than 450 children and youth.