As a planner and lover of parties -especially for my kids, it was a pleasure to participate in The Northern Birthday Box Project again this year. This Facebook Group is dedicated to bringing birthday fun to kids who live in very remote areas of Northern Canada, and they match you to a child who’s celebrating their Birthday soon. The group’s administrators provide you with all the details—theme, child’s favourite colour and cake, and all of the shipping information. You can fill a box with Birthday fun, and send it to them!
The children are part of families that wouldn’t have regular access to big box or grocery stores to buy supplies. Our match this year was a sweet boy turning 9 who loves orange and Sponge Bob Square Pants. He lives in Poplar River First Nation, a reserve in Manitoba with a population of 1,500.
Many of the northern towns participating in this project have only one store where things are almost triple the price because of the shipping costs. This is such an important reminder for us to think about other families who don’t have the same access to stores, groceries, and supplies – many of them right in our own province… and the things we take for granted, such as popping into a dollar store for a few more party supplies.
It’s a perfect Summer activity to do with kids, as well as an opportunity to educate and bring awareness to the challenges and crisis situations that Indigenous communities in our country are continually faced with.
The kids absolutely loved putting the box together and hope they get to meet him one day! Also in a stroke of good luck, we thoroughly cleared Oakville’s Party City of their Sponge Bob supplies because they were about to be discontinued!
Here is the link to the Facebook project page if you’d like to participate!
