P.A. Outreach marks start of holiday season

Dec 13, 2018 | 6:10 PM

With the arrival of the holiday season, a number of traditions come to the forefront. One of biggest is food, with many people excited about sitting down with their family for a big meal.

Students and staff at P.A. Outreach got an early start to the meal portion of the season, as the organization put on a feast Thursday afternoon.

Liz Settee, the elder for the organization, told paNOW that having meals like this provides some great opportunities.

“It’s the coming together, it’s the families coming together, the friends coming together, the alumni’s know some of the students we have here,” she said.

Along with bringing together a number of different people, from different walks of life, Settee said it helps to bring the staff together too as they work together to prepare the food.

“That kitchen was busy this morning,” she said.

Settee added the preparation of the meal, as well, provides staff the chance to provide further lessons to the youth.

“It’s the youth, watching the staff mentor about the teamwork and the cooperation, there’s a whole bunch of things in there, that are meaningful,” she said.

Settee noted for some youth who are involved with the organization, the holiday season can be a difficult time given their past experiences.

Not only were students at P.A. Outreach provided with a nice meal to help kickoff the holiday season, the organization is as well sending them home with hampers for the holidays.

“As they carry on over the Christmas season, they’ll have some food with them as well,” said Wes Clark, the executive director of P.A. Outreach.

The hampers contained a variety of traditional Christmas foods like oranges, dinner rolls and ham. There are deserts included as well.

Clark said a number of local businesses made donations which allowed his organization to put on the meal and hand out the hampers. The supporting organizations included the Prince Albert Police Service, Safeway, Leon’s and the Prince Albert Literacy Network.   

“There such an enormous amount of supporters that have made this possible,” he said.

MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn