ESTEVAN — The Estevan Kinette Club has successfully wrapped up another year of the community's favourite PJ Project, ensuring many local children wake up on Christmas morning in cozy new pyjamas.
The initiative, co-chaired by Chelsey Istace and Kristol Nagy, collects and distributes pyjamas to children on the Estevan Community Hamper Association's list, helping families in need share in the festive tradition.
"The support was amazing as always," Istace shared. "We had tons of people bring in donations from the Estevan Recreational Dance Studio, Spruce Ridge School, Sacred Heart School and other organizations. There were tons of different incentives around town, so everybody was very supportive again this year."
The PJ Project's mission is deeply rooted in the community, with local retailers stepping up to ensure the initiative's success.
"We actually shopped local for all of the PJs this year," Istace noted. "It's nice that local retailers have supplies for us because we used to have to go out of town a lot."
This year saw extraordinary participation from local schools. Spruce Ridge Elementary topped the contributions with 302 pairs of pyjamas, boosted by a friendly internal competition that offered a pizza party for the winning class. Sacred Heart School also made a strong showing with their "wear-a-pair, bring-a-pair" initiative, collecting 96 pairs.
The project also benefited from monetary donations, which were used to purchase larger sizes often in high demand.
"Some of the smaller sizes, we were able to give out more than one pair," Istace said. "But for the bigger sizes, we had to do shopping three different times."
There were about 450 children on the Kinettes' PJ list this year. All of them received a new pyjama set, and some even two, thanks to the community support and the project's long-term partners.
"A shout-out to the Bruins for letting us host our kickoff for the PJ Project at their game and thank you to Jenny Joans for being our drop-off location year after year," Istace added.
