From Holiday Cheer to Year-Round Need: The Changing Face of Charity
By Qinglang Wu, Dec 16, 2024
In the glow of holiday lights, 20 women move briskly around the kitchen table on Dec. 2, 2024. Some girls are wrapping shoeboxes, some girls are writing inspirational cards.
Laughter is spilling over as they stuff small but meaningful necessities—shampoo, lotions, toothbrushes, and hand creams—into the boxes designed for women in shelters.
For the past 10 years, Katie Legg-Roney, who owns a small restaurant business in London, has been hosting packing parties and bringing together a group of girls during Christmas for the London Shoebox Project.
“I just want to give back a little more. I want to give back to the women that aren’t as lucky as I am. I want to have a time where my friends can get together and share that opportunity with them of giving and feeling good.” Legg-Roney said.
With love, generosity and kindness, Legg-Roney and her friends put together 76 shoeboxes for women in the community that impacted by homelessness or at risk of being homeless this holiday season. The shoebox might be the only gift some women receive the whole year.
Photo from Katie Legg-Roney’s Instagram
The Shoebox Project for women was founded in Toronto in 2011 by four sisters-in-law. The family noticed that while there were many holiday gift drives for children experiencing homelessness, similar initiatives for their mothers were missing.
Hoping to make the holiday season a bit brighter for local women in their community, they reached out to friends and acquaintances, inviting them to fill a shoebox with thoughtful yet essential gifts—small luxuries designed to bring joy and comfort to any woman.
After gathering 400 shoeboxes in the first year, the sisters quickly realized that their “Shoebox Project” had the potential to grow far beyond their Toronto roots, evolving into a national movement. Today, In London and across Canada, the initiative continues to spread joy, inspiring local communities to fill shoeboxes with thoughtful gifts for women in need.
“When I opened my box and I got ‘girlie’ things like nail polish, lipstick and accessories, I was so grateful because I felt somewhat normal,” said Kerry Benjoe, a shoebox recipient who used to live in a shelter.
During the holiday season, donation requests and fundraising campaigns seem to be everywhere—on social media, on checkout counters, and in the apartment buildings—creating a sense of urgency and widespread participation. This seasonal spike in visibility make it seem like the need is especially high at the end of the year.
However, the need for charitable donations doesn’t simply disappear—yet the generosity that so many feel during the festive months often drops off once the new year begins. For organizations that operate year-round like London Food Bank, this shift can be particularly challenging. While the holiday brings in a significant influx of support, either from individuals, or agencies and corporations, the months that follow can feel quieter.
“I do the most during the holiday season because it’s easier to get people involved.” Legg-Roney said.
Food insecurity is a year-round struggle for many families, even as community awareness ebbs and flows with the seasons.
“There are big food drives at Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas in part, because that’s when people to some degree start talking about others,” said Jane Roy, co-executive director of London Food Bank. “There’s generally a bit of lull of food from the public towards the end of the summer.”
Research supports this phenomenon of holiday giving. “Social norms and cultural expectation can be the most significant factors when it comes to holiday giving,” said Wei Wang, a student that did lots of research on cognitive and social psychology. “The holidays are framed as a time to give out generously and to give goodwill to someone else. There’s a societal expectation to give during holidays.”
“Many people conform to these norms because they want to maintain a positive social identity,” Wang said. She also points out that the emotional state can be an important factor that promotes people’s altruism.
Wang said that this is based on a theory brought by Isen and Levin back in 1972. Their research shows that people are more likely to act altruistically when they experience positive emotions. The holidays often bring feelings of joy and connection, which can enhance the willingness to help others.
“Another key trigger to the increased generosity is guilt,” Wang added. “When we see others struggling, especially during a time when we’re celebrating abundance, we may feel a sense of guilt about our own privileges. And Charitable giving becomes a way to alleviate this feeling and restore a positive self-image.”
When talking about why people feel less motivated to help after a period of intense holiday giving, Wang mentioned a concept—compassion fatigue. This concept refers to the emotional exhaustion and desensitization after prolonged exposure to suffering. People may feel overwhelmed after they are “bombarded with stories of suffering just because of how the charities do their campaigns and all the advertisements that we see during the holiday season,” Wang said. “We want to protect ourselves by stepping backward a little bit. And we may unconsciously suppress our empathetic responses, which make us less inclined to engage in altruistic acts maybe in a short term.”
The challenge of sustaining support highlights a deeper issue: how can communities carry the spirit of generosity throughout the year, rather than confining it to certain seasons?
When London Food Bank first opened, 50 to 60 per cent of their donations came at the end of the year, and they lived off those funds the following months. But things are getting better. “The donations bump in terms of holidays, but it doesn't bump as significantly as it used to. And when people give us money, that actually allows us to stay consistent regardless of when that money comes in,” Roy said.
In recent years, organizations like London Food Bank have worked to address this imbalance by cultivating a steady base of support through monthly donations and ongoing partnerships. “Corporations give us food, so we pick up from Costco. And we’re getting Maple Leaf donations. Some food companies will give us (food) tied to their inventory end, which could be at different points through the year, or they give us on a monthly basis,” Roy said.
Wang suggested another effective approach for individuals, which is leveraging default mechanism, such as automatic deductions or subscriptions, to encourage regular giving. This is similar to how people manage services like Spotify. For example, setting up a system where individuals can donate a small, manageable amount, such as $1 per month, can seamlessly integrate prosocial behaviour into daily life.
While one dollar may seem insignificant at first glance, it accumulates over time to equal the larger sums people are often willing to give during annual campaigns or charity events. This approach not only reduces the perceived burden of giving but also normalizes it as part of a person’s routine, fostering a long-term habit of generosity. Over time, this can help shift prosocial behaviour into an integral part of someone’s lifestyle, making giving feel like a necessary and meaningful act throughout the year.
Beyond the partnerships with corporations and individual donors, Roy also addressed the critical role of traditional media collaborations in maintaining visibility year-round. “Every charity receives a bump when they get traditional media coverage,” Roy said. “Social media posts only go to people who follow us. But with tradition media coverage, it’s incredibly important because it raises the issues to the public.”
Consistent storytelling in local newspapers, radio shows, and online platforms reminds the public that issues like food insecurity persist long after the holiday lights are taken down. “We’ve developed relationships of trust with the media, and we see media as partners in this,” Roy said.
As impactful as community efforts and media coverage can be, they are not a replacement for systemic solutions. Roy acknowledges the vital role government plays in addressing food insecurity and other social issues. “There’s no way that charity can ever replace what government does, in terms of programming, assistance, and different levels of government just need to talk to each other and figure it out in many ways,” she said. “Money in people’s pocket makes a difference. When money comes in, our numbers go up,” she added.
This is a reminder that while community generosity is essential, broader economic policies and governmental support ultimately have the power to bring about lasting change.
