SSi Canada/QINIQ is giving back to the communities the company serves with nine days of Christmas kindness, including three donations to Nunavut charities and organizations. The others are spread between Yellowknife and Ottawa.
“We wanted to use the money that would typically be used to celebrate staff at the end of the year and to give it to various charities,” said Susan Finlay, senior adviser for marketing and development for SSi Canada.
photo courtesy of SSi Canada
The donations kicked off Dec. 8 when SSi contributed funds to the Ilisaqsivik Clyde River Wellness Centre, which provides resources and programming for families and individuals to promote community wellness, health and healing. The donation will be used toward hampers of food and cleaning supplies for the holiday season, as well as medical supplies for families in need.
The Arctic Children and Youth Foundation (ACYF) headquartered at the Umingmak Centre in Iqaluit was the was the next Nunavut recipient on Dec. 11. Based in Iqaluit, ACYF serves all of Nunavut with a goal of helping all Nunavut children and youth obtain standards of living and services similar to the rest of Canada in terms of education, opportunities, health and well-being.
“They wrote us a nice little blurb saying during the pandemic they were unable to see clients in person, SSi Canada responded by providing internet services in a unique way that they could stay connected,” said Finlay. “The financial money we will be giving, it will be used to create wellness packages for those clients.”
Those wellness packages include clothing, food, wellness activities and gifts for the children and youth who are receiving it.
The Niqinik Nuatsivik Nunavut Food Bank was the third Nunavut-based recipient, with funds going to them for future food bank needs. The board has decided to use the donation towards one week of fresh produce for food bank clients.
“Behind the scenes SSi is always doing a lot of these types of community funding," she said, adding that with anxiety about Covid-19 and other concerns people may have "we just figured at Christmas it would be nice to share the stories, because it’s nice right now for people to be reading about kind things that are happening.”
“It’s important for them to know that SSi really cares about the communities, we’re very familiar with the communities, we have representatives in each community that are local and from those communities.
“We’re just hoping all the communities stay safe and stay healthy.”