Christmas Cheer Board launches 2019 campaign

100 Years of Christmas Miracles

A Winnipeg gift-giving institution is celebrating its 100th anniversary this winter, and the longtime face of the organization is celebrating a milestone of his own.

Kai Madsen, executive director of the Christmas Cheer Board, is being recognized by the province Tuesday evening for his 50th anniversary with the organization, which gives out tens of thousands of hampers to needy Winnipeggers each year.

Madsen told 680 CJOB that he’s more interested in the Cheer Board’s milestone being honoured than his own – and that the organization he’s helmed for a half-century is still doing important work in the city after initially forming in the aftermath of the First World War.

Source: Global News

In 1919, churches across Winnipeg began to provide Christmas food hampers and toys to widows and orphans of soldiers lost during the First World War.

Those churches would later combine their efforts to create The Christmas Cheer Board of Winnipeg.

More than 1,000 of the cheer board's volunteers are students from across the city. (File image)
This year, the board is marking a century of providing hampers to Winnipeggers during the holidays.

“We started our operations because of a need and the need is still there,” said Linda Grayston, Christmas Cheer Board assistant executive director.

Today, the registered Canadian charity provides more than 17,000 hampers and gifts to children and families in Winnipeg each holiday season.

“For the people who receive them, it’s amazing,” said Grayston.

They can also leave a lasting impression.

“We have older people who come in with donations and often times we talk to them and they say, ‘I got a hamper when I was a child. That was the only thing that we got. Without that I wouldn’t have known what it was like to celebrate Christmas the same way,’ and so that makes us feel really good,” Grayston said. “We know there’s many people like that who come in.”

Grayston said the board couldn’t have lasted a century without the approximately 3,000 people who volunteer their time each year.

“Our volunteer base grows every year and we have hundreds and hundreds of volunteers that come and work with us,” she said.

More than 1,000 of those volunteers are students from across the city.

“We bring them in twice a day over a three-week period and they pack all the hampers,” Grayston said. “It’s amazing. Those kids work so hard. And they sing songs and they laugh. It’s wonderful.”

The cheer board operates under the guidance of its long-serving executive director, Kai Madsen.

As the board celebrates 100 years, Madsen -- who got his start with the board delivering hampers -- is also celebrating a milestone: fifty years with the board.

“He’s passionate about the Cheer Board,” Grayston said. “He just loves it and he just considers it a fun adventure every year.”

Source: CTV Winnipeg

Christmas is a little less than three months away, but the Christmas Cheer Board is in the spotlight already as the organization marks its 100th anniversary.

Source:  ChrisD

A Winnipeg charity is celebrating 100 years of cheer. Coming up, how the Christmas Cheer Board and the man known as Winnipeg's Santa, Kai Madsen, are being recognized.

Source: CBC Manitoba

The Christmas Cheer Board of Winnipeg will celebrate a century of providing Christmas hampers to Winnipeggers in need with a reception at Government House on Tuesday evening.

Source: Winnipeg Sun

Kai Madsen, Executive Director of the Christmas Cheer Board which distributed 17,000 hampers to families this Christmas.

The Christmas tree in the Winnipeg Free Press atrium has been packed away for another year and the newspaper wants to thank generous readers for their donations to its annual holiday fundraising campaign.

Source: Winnipeg Free Press

By: Jen Zoratti

For 99 years, the Christmas Cheer Board has been working hard to ensure everyone has a happy holiday, and for 49 of those years, Kai Madsen, the charity's executive director, has been a part of making that miracle happen.

"I thought about retiring, but making it to 50 and 100 would be really neat," he says from the Cheer Board's new location on St. James Street, acknowledging the dual significance of 2019.

Madsen's work is not easy, but it's rewarding, and it's made lighter by the generosity of Winnipeggers who help put food on tables and presents under trees by volunteering both their time and money. Making a donation to the Christmas Cheer Board has become a holiday tradition for many people.

Supporting the Christmas Cheer Board is a holiday tradition for us here at the Winnipeg Free Press, too. Today, we're kicking off our fifth annual Miracle on Mountain fundraising campaign that collects monetary donations for the Christmas Cheer Board to pay for food and other items packed into hampers.

"The tradition of our readers stepping up to help the Christmas Cheer Board is part of what makes the holiday season so special in our city," says Free Press editor Paul Samyn. "We are delighted to once again ask our audience to make a Miracle On Mountain so we can make a difference for so many at Christmas."