A Barrie entrepreneur has taken a tragic event from her past to help forgotten children this season.
Amanda Patrick, co-founder and president of Hardwood Your Home, has launched 'Gift-A-Family,' a Christmas campaign designed to match families with sponsors to have a memorable Christmas.
The objective is to reach a subset of kids who are not connected to any charitable organization because their parents are either unwilling, unable, or incapable of doing so.
Having a tough childhood is a topic Patrick knows well.
"I was raised by a single mother with four kids, and things were extremely tight," she recalls.
"My mother had a lot of mental health issues and never proactively reached out for help. Christmas is the hardest because you return to school and see all your friends with new clothes and toys."
Patrick's life got a lot harder in May 2000, after a tragic event in her home led to the death of three children.
"When I was 13, three beautiful little children, ages seven, four, and three, playing hide-and-seek in my house, climbed inside a wooden clothing trunk. In under eight minutes, they ran out of oxygen, suffocated and died in the trunk."
After those events, Patrick's mother abandoned her and her sister in the home. Eventually, the hydro and heat were shut off, and the girls had to steal Mr. Noodles Packets from the corner store to survive.
Things got so bad that Patrick contemplated suicide.
"I felt so unloved ... and then I had this voice come over me and say, 'No. You're going to get out of here,' I realized I was the only one to do that for myself."
The next day, Patrick hand-wrote 20 resumes, eventually landed a job, and began her hard battle out of poverty.
Going public with her childhood struggles has inspired her to give back in honour of the three children.
"Whether they have mental health issues like my mom, whether they struggle with addiction, there are these kids that are forgotten. And those are the pockets of kids we're reaching right now."
People can anonymously nominate families or self-nominate through a form on the "Hardwood Your Home" website. The family will be matched with a sponsor who will help give the children and families a memorable holiday.
Patrick says that since its launch, 'Gift-A-Family' has attracted much interest.
"The little campaign that started about four weeks ago has led to $50,000 in pledges towards the families that I've matched, and we're going to surpass 100 children now that we are successfully matching," she says.
Patrick wants to stress a major aspect of the campaign: safety.
The mothers of the three children killed that day, Anita Ornsby and April Kunce-Kipis, have written an open letter on the website about how to make your home a safe place for children, including drilling air holes into any place they can hide, and several other child safety tips.
"Anything with a lid or latch – we urge you to please drill some holes for air. This simple act can be the difference between life and death for your child." the post reads.
To find out how you can nominate a family or become a sponsor, go to hardwoodyourhome
