Seniors who live at the Sunshine Ridge Retirement Residence in Osoyoos are proud of the growing success of the Meat Charity Program that is run in conjunction with Osoyoos Elementary School. The program involves seniors donating money, which is used to purchase gift certificates at a local grocery store. Those gift certificates are then handed out to less fortunate students at the school and used to purchase meat products. Last week, a couple of young students visited Sunshine Ridge and socialized with (from left) Hilda Beblow, Kay Lewis and Margaret Traquair. (Contributed photo)

A group of seniors at a local retirement residence are ensuring that young children attending Osoyoos Elementary School – and their family members – are being well fed through a unique partnership program.

Connie Osachoff, who has been living at Sunshine Ridge Retirement Residence in Osoyoos for more than three years, has led the charge to establish a partnership called the Meat Charity Program.

For more than two months, various residents at Sunshine Ridge have been contributing small amounts of money towards this program.

Every time $120 is collected, Osachoff heads to AG Foods in Osoyoos to purchase a gift certificate in that amount, which she then turns over to Osoyoos Elementary School principal Dave Foster.

Foster then selects various students from less fortunate families to receive the $120 gift certificates, which can only be used to purchase meat products at the local grocery store.

“We’ve been working on this since the fall … we wanted to start a program that would benefit children in the community,” said Osachoff, who is well known locally for operating the Christmas Pyjama Drive over the past seven years.

“In the back of my head I knew there were local programs to help feed people, but I thought it was important to include meat because meat is something that a lot of the less fortunate families are forced to skip when they buy groceries.’

When she approached Foster with her concept, he immediately jumped on board and the program has been a big success since it started in late fall, she said.

“Last week we turned over our 11th gift certificate for $120 in meat, so this means we’ve really helped 11 local families and we’re quite proud of that,” said Osachoff.

The staff at AG Foods has also been very supportive as they will assist families that are cashing in the gift certificates to get the best value possible on meat products in the store, she said.

The success for the program lies with the generous souls who reside at Sunshine Ridge, said Osachoff.

“We have many residents who want to help so they drop off $5 or $10 or $20 and every five or six weeks we have enough to purchase another gift certificate,” she said. “The residents at Sunshine Ridge really want to help make a difference in their community and they’ve been extremely generous in supporting this program.”

Osachoff sees no reason why the meat charity program won’t continue to be a success at the local elementary school for years to come.

Foster said he and all of the teachers, staff and students at Osoyoos Elementary School are very thankful for the generosity of the Sunshine Ridge residents and their efforts to assist children in need.

The school runs a backpack program, where the Osoyoos Kiwanis Club donates backpacks full of food every Friday to several students in need and their families, said Foster.

The gift certificates supplied through the meat charity program are then included in the backpacks, he said.

“It’s a fantastic program and it really is making a difference,” said Foster. “It has been a great partnership between the school and Sunshine Ridge and I’m hoping we can continue the program in the future.”

As part of the program, Osachoff said students from the elementary school have started paying regular visits to talk to and socialize with residents from Sunshine Ridge, which is a wonderful way bridge the generation gap and allow students to thank the seniors for their contributions to this program.

Any program that allows regular contact between young students and seniors is beneficial as everyone involved gains insight and appreciation of different generations, he said.

Considering how successful the program has been in a few short months, Foster is also confident this program will continue to grow and prosper in the coming months.

Osachoff and her friends at Sunshine Ridge agree.

KEITH LACEY

Osoyoos Times