The northern Manitoba chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, the Opasquai Chapter 24, has been hard at work to provide its annual Christmas gift bags to anyone in need this holiday season.
The Masonic-affiliated volunteer group, open to men and women, has coordinated a campaign to provide handmade gifts, warm items of clothing, toys, hygiene items, candy and other items for people who may need them over the holidays but otherwise would not receive them.
All year, members of the Eastern Star lodge collect items that they can use for the holiday drive, including hygiene supplies like shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste, tissue and other items, and combine them with one of the group’s signature items - sweets, toys and hand-knit clothing.
Members spend months knitting tuques, mittens and other items for anyone needing to stay warm this winter, then combine some of the hand-knit items and the hygiene items in holiday gift bags, which get distributed throughout the north, stretching from Churchill to The Pas and everywhere in between.
Locally, the group works with the Flin Flon Aboriginal Friendship Centre and the Women’s Resource Centre to provide donation bags during the holidays.
“I think for the centre, just from what I’ve observed, all the toys and candy bags and tuques and mitts, there’s probably 120 that can be gifted through us just from this group, and other items still go to the Women’s Resource Centre,” said Amanda Fleury with the Friendship Centre.
“Just for the centre itself, there are 120 people that we can provide with something.”
The chapter is based in The Pas - its name, Opasquai, is a misspelling of “Opasquia” that stuck over time - but it includes members from Flin Flon, Thompson, Swan River and elsewhere, even including a pair of members in Selkirk. In Flin Flon Dec. 5, the group held an informal lunch meeting to welcome in some new members, to help coordinate the campaign and to help provide donations to local groups.
“This project is so important to our communities that we have members of our organization who are not members of our chapter who contribute mitts and tuques and other goods,” said order member Carol Girling.
“Those of us who drive up from the south for meetings have a cargo of different products. It’s very generous for those who aren’t even members to contribute, but it's so important to us that they understand that.”
This year’s campaign is different than those that came before, due mainly to who is not here. Jeanne Fell, one of the driving forces of the group for years, died this past September. Fell was involved with the Christmas drive, doing much of the knitting and organizing for the group’s campaigns - in her last few campaigns, she knit all of the group’s mittens. Fell’s loss looms large over the group this year, having to hold their first holiday campaign without her in decades.
“Now that we’ve lost her, we really have to try harder to help out knitting mitts,” said Brooke McLean, the worthy matron - a group term for a leader or main organizer - for this year’s bag drive.
“It will continue for next year. Even if we have to buy mitts, we will continue it.”
One new key member is Fell’s daughter Susan, who has gotten involved with the campaign this year. Other new members have joined the organization in the past year, most of whom help out with the drive in whatever way possible.
“This chapter is 104 years old and it has a long history of people before us who have done incredibly good works in our communities. It really is a responsibility and a privilege to continue that,” said Girling.
Anyone wanting to donate to the drive can do so by contacting the provincial website for the Eastern Star can be found at oesmanitoba.ca.
“If anybody is willing to knit for us or crochet, we accept all that,” said McLean. The group also holds regular events and draws to raise funds for the drive each year and accepts donations of yarn to help create the items.
