Healthy wrapping fundraiser

A number of volunteers are doing their part to make the holidays cheerful for shoppers and all the while raising funds to improve medical services in the West Island.

The annual gift-wrapping project for the Lakeshore General Hospital Foundation (LGHF) raised about $25,500 last year and organizers are hoping to equal or better that amount this holiday season. The funds are used to buy new equipment needed for the Pointe Claire hospital, said LGHF communications officer Dan Enjo.

Close to 100 dedicated volunteers, from students to seniors, help pull off the feat each year. Two of these volunteers are John Abbott College students Marina Privorotsky and Anna Wu, who did a shift at Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre last Friday.

Privorotsky, an 18-year-old from Kirkland, is in her second year of wrapping for the LGHF. She signed up after seeing a notice looking for volunteers at college. “I enjoy doing it, it’s fun,” she said. “People who come get their gifts wrapped for their family are very generous.”

However, she has faced wrapping challenges. “Once I had to wrap a white fake tree, over a metre long,” she recalled. “We struggled with it but finally got it done.”

Wu, 18, said her first-time volunteering at the LGHF wrapping kiosk was the last holiday shopping day before Christmas last year. “So, a lot of last-minute shoppers,” she said, adding those folks tended to get CDs, DVDs and sports gear.

Although the holidays are a hectic time at malls, Wu said it doesn’t phase her to deal with shoppers. “Actually, I enjoy how busy it is,” she said. “It just keeps going and going and the people are all happy about the end result. People are not picky at all (about the wrapping).”

Wu said some of her toughest wrapping assignments are large toys that she needs to find a big enough box to fit it. “We have to improvise, but it’s not that difficult,” she said.

People generally give between $5 and $15 for the gift wrapping, Privorotsky said, adding now that she has the hang of it, it takes her about seven minutes to wrap an item.

The LGHF holiday gift-wrapping project will run until Dec. 24 at Fairview and the Loblaw’s in Kirkland. <@Cp>Chronicle, Brenda Chance<@$p>