A new gift shop has popped up in Lac La Biche and is hoping to make it just a little easier on struggling parents this season.
The Perfect Gift Store, located on Main Street, is an idea formed by husband and wife Daren and Angie Werk from Lac La Biche's New Life Victory Fellowship church. The Christmas-themed popup store gives parents the chance to "shop" for free of charge Christmas presents for their kids.
This is the first year for the gift shop, but initially it was inspired by "Shop of Wonders," a successful program that has been running in Lethbridge for the past four years. The idea is that no child should be left without a gift on Christmas, and no parent or guardian should have to struggle to provide for their kids.
"We've been through Christmases — I think most people have — where you don't have anything. It has nothing to do with the gift as much as it kind of hurts your soul when you get nothing, and Christmas can be a hard, difficult time, so this is restoring hope," says Daren.
The downtown store is filled with new toys donated mainly from the church congregation as well as other local community members and businesses. Each gift has a certain number of star stickers on it. Parents can choose up to five-star gifts per child at no cost.
Angie explains that the five-star shopping method is a great way of allowing parents to select gifts that their kids will enjoy. It lets them actually shop for items instead of simply picking items off a donation table.
"It's not just a big table like, 'here you go, pick what you want' it's like 'come in, come and shop."
Parents also have the option to choose from a variety of small accessories and candies to fill up their kids' stockings.
Register to wrap it up
Once parents have finished their shopping, they can choose to either wrap the gifts themselves at the gift-wrapping station or have volunteers do it for them.
Parents who would like to be a part of the program must go online to register their child by Dec. 11. Once registered, the family will be contacted to book a private shopping time between Dec 12 and 20, where they can come in and look around.
Currently, a total of 103 children have been registered, but both Angie and Daren suspect that number will increase in the coming days as the story gets into the community. They are encouraging residents to donate if they can. People who wish to donate can do so at New Life Victory Fellowship, Kut & Kurl, Smiley's and Bumper to Bumper in Plamondon or through the shop's facebook page HERE.
As the success of the popup shop is expected to grow, the Werks plan to introduce a Christmas 'Kid Zone,' where children can shop for free items for their parents.
"The greatest need we see in this community is hope, so if we could do something, even like this that restores a little bit of dignity and a little bit of hope, it's not much, but at least it's something," says Daren.
