Monica LaSalle, Coal Creek Canyon.   Coal Creek Canyon Cares put together 60 plus holiday gift baskets this year to hand out to locals in need from Coal Creek, Gilpin County, Nederland and beyond. Canyon Cares is a 501 C(3) organization that provides one-time financial help to community members experiencing a financial crisis. They provide assistance to people in Coal Creek Canyon, Nederland and rural Gilpin County. There are a variety of ways that they may assist depending on the situation and may include help with housing, transportation, utilities, house repairs, food/water and medical costs. More recently, they have been working with Saws and Slaws, another local organization, to provide wood to those that cannot afford it.

The food was gathered from donation drop off locations in Coal Creek (Coal Creek Canyon K8, Kwik Mart, Coffee Shop, Carl’s Corner and United Power) and at the B & F in Nederland. The Arvada Food Bank gave a large food donation and United Power made a generous donation of $5,000, most of which went toward gift cards to Walmart to include in the baskets. Also included in most of the baskets were handmade cards from the kids at CCC K8 and some baskets included fleece blankets. Additionally, they had an anonymous donor who contributed either a small turkey breast or ham for those who signed up in time to be on the list for the meat. The organization volunteers spent all week sorting the canned and dry goods, with the Cub Scouts joining them, along with some other locals to assemble the baskets. It is quite the production with the baskets all laid out on the floor of the Fellowship Hall at Whispering Pines.

For more information, go to www.canyoncares.org. Canyon Cares was founded in 2006 and in 2012 they started doing the Holiday Baskets to give a little extra cheer to those in need in the community during the holidays. Canyon Cares is thankful to all that helped assemble the Holiday Food Baskets at Whispering Pines. That includes Pack 51 members and families, the board members (past and present), their friends and neighbors, the Lawsons and Tommy Drouillard, who generously donated 15 pizzas.
Additionally, Canyon Cares thanks all the people in Coal Creek Canyon and Nederland whose donations made this possible.

(Originally published in the December 13, 2018, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)