CANADIAN LIVING NOVEMBER 2019 | 53Jennifer’s kids were on board, and handed over
gift cards and more. In fact, it was her daughter,
Lauryn, now 19, who really inspired Bags of Hope,
the charity that Jennifer’s family started as winners
of the Canadian Living contest held last year in part-
nership with WE Charity. Three years ago, while
Lauryn was working at the local pharmacy, she
bought personal care items on clearance and, with
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amount to distribute in backpacks to women’s shel-
ters. With Bags of Hope, Lauryn wanted to do it all
over again, but on a much bigger scale.
No one in the family knew just how big that scale
would get. With a $1,000 start-up fund and guid-
ance from mentors at WE Charity, Jennifer emailed
every local shelter to ask about in-demand items,
created a Facebook page to spread the word and
asked for donations from businesses big and small.
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Tammy MacKay,” says Jennifer, who came home
one day to discover 96 bottles of apple juice and
96 packets of cheese and crackers on her doorstep.
“I thought, ‘If just one person donated all this, ima-
gine how much good we can do.’” Soon, donations
were pouring in. Complete strangers called asking
how they could help. Almost every company Jennifer
reached out to said yes. Sobey’s donated $500 worth
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enough t-shirts and underwear for each recipient to
have at least two of each. (“One man was so excited
to get new underwear that he ran up to a brick wall,
and changed into them then and there,” says
Jennifer with a laugh. “It was priceless.”)
In all, Jennifer’s family delivered 200 Bags of
Hope over the course of four months—50 bags over
one day in each of the months of April, May, June“My kids
realized how
fortunate
they are and
how impor-
tant it is to
give back.”
Jennifer Murray-
Stokes (opposite, far
left and above, left)
and her family, includ-
ing son Noah (left)
and stepdaughter
Stephanie (above,
right), delivered
essentials to people
living with homeless-
ness in whale-motif
bags donated by
Danica Imports.