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Vancouver\u2019s Suhaila Hamed has been volunteering at The Salvation Army so much that her seven-year-old daughter thinks she\u2019s \u201cworking for Santa.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe thinks I\u2019m an elf,\u201d Hamed said with a laugh. The 41-year-old mother of three is a regular volunteer at the charity\u2019s Vancouver Community and Family Services \u2014 one of 27 community organizations sponsored by The Province\u2019s Empty Stocking Fund. While she donates her time year-round, she\u2019s currently helping the organization with its Christmas Assistance program by packing food hampers and toy gifts that will go to local families in need over the holidays.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want (to volunteer) every day,\u201d said Hamed. \u201cI love kids and I love to help, and The Salvation Army has been helping my family a lot.\u201d Hamed and her children landed in Vancouver 20 years ago after fleeing Iraq. While she escaped the dangers of the war-torn country, the rest of her family stayed, so she was left alone in her struggle to adapt to Canadian life. \u201cIt was very challenging for me,\u201d she said, adding that it was \u2014 and still is \u2014 difficult to make friends and establish a sense of community. \u201cIt\u2019s loneliness I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
And with little knowledge of the English language, she struggled to get on her feet. Fortunately, she was connected with The Salvation Army on Fraser Street, where she registered for a number of programs, including Christmas Assistance, which has provided the family with holiday dinners and gifts over the years. While Hamed has since settled, gone to school and landed a job as an on-call nursing aide, her income is still \u201cnot that high,\u201d so she continues to qualify for the charity\u2019s holiday program. \u201cIt\u2019s really, really helpful for me,\u201d she said, adding that because of the program she\u2019s able to have her children \u2014 Ala, now a 27-year-old hair stylist and Artin, now a 25-year-old business student \u2014 over for turkey dinner, as well as put gifts under the tree for Lana, 7.\u201cThat\u2019s why \u2026 I\u2019m so happy when I volunteer there,\u201d said Hamed. \u201cI appreciate that they\u2019ve been helping me all these years to (raise) my children. They\u2019ve become such great kids because \u2026 they live in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to prove how much I appreciate to be in this country. \u201cAccording to Deb Lowell, who\u2019s worked for The Salvation Army for the past 30 years, it\u2019s \u201cquite often\u201d that she sees people like Hamed, who\u2019ve been personally impacted by the charity, donate their time. \u201cPeople that we\u2019ve assisted in the past will start to volunteer for us and they\u2019ll even become staff members,\u201d said Lowell. \u201cWhen they\u2019re back on their feet and moving towards independence, they often feel that they want to give back. And who better to offer hope to somebody else than someone who really, truly understands, because they\u2019ve been where you are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vancouver\u2019s Suhaila Hamed has been volunteering at The Salvation Army so much that her seven-year-old daughter thinks she\u2019s \u201cworking for Santa.\u201d \u201cShe thinks I\u2019m an elf,\u201d Hamed said with a laugh. The 41-year-old mother of three is a regular volunteer at the charity\u2019s Vancouver Community and Family Services \u2014 one of 27 community organizations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-2623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-interest"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n