My family used to visit loved ones in the nursing home (in Port Hawkesbury and St Peters areas) and we often noticed that while OUR loved one had lots of visitors and friends stop by... not all the residents did. Christmas is an especially noticeable time when many seniors are without family, they may be recently widowed and may feel a sense of sadness over the holidays which they are now spending with 'strangers' instead of family .

Our idea is to create 'buddy bags' or 'buddy boxes ' that would be delivered to local nursing homes prior to the holidays in the hopes that SANTA would distribute the treats to residents just in time for Christmas morning. The list of contents of the bags are found below..

I have participated in "Awesome Antigonish " Projects several times already. The first year I found a pink envelope, we doubled it and bought a pink rose, pink nail polish and I had a pink purse at home that was gently used, and my kids and I headed to the nursing home to deliver the gift and paint some lady's nails. :) It was fun, and my kids were only young at the time.

I didn't find a pink envelope the next year, but at home my kids and I created study bags of treats for StFX University students who had exams, and we drove around campus handing them out to random students with a 'good luck on your exams' label.
Recently, I repeated my exam treat bags to create 20 boxes of treats. I love the Awesome Antigonish idea and I think it's great to 'pay it forward' and create empathy in the younger generation.