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Students from St. Patrick High School formed a human chain from the school gym across Franklin Avenue, to the Salvation Army to deliver food for Christmas hampers. - Danielle Sachs/NNSL photo

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The food delivery from St. Patrick High School to the Salvation Army was a welcome addition to the Christmas hamper program on Wednesday.

The Salvation Army expected to gather enough food to make 35 Christmas hampers. Once the food drive was complete, however, enough material to make 40 hampers was collected, according to Salvation Army program co-ordinator Stacey Van Metre.

Earlier in the month Van Metre expressed concerns there weren't going to be enough donations to fulfill all the applications for Christmas hampers.

Capt. Ian Gillingham of the Salvation Army watched the food chain delivery in the afternoon.

"It's fantastic," he said, adding the boxes wouldn't be distributed as they were delivered, as they still had to be sorted according to need.

Applications for the hamper program were scheduled to end today, but Van Metre said she expected 20 more names on the list from last year, bringing the total to 280 hampers for Yellowknife. There were around 200 hampers already sent out to communities around the NWT.

"After the last story where donations were down, donations started pouring in," said Van Metre.

"I was outside with (the students) and this year superseded last year."

Van Metre said more people were involved this year and no families were going to be left out of the program.

"A big thank you to everyone that donated," she said. "It's a never-ending list but this was just awesome."

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