The Montreal Diet Dispensary
“The children’s eyes shone like Christmas trees when they came to pick up their presents”
(MONTREAL) – Every year, for a few weeks before the Holiday Season, our city’s oldest charity, the Montreal Diet Dispensary (MDD), converts into Santa Claus’ shop, with donations of food, clothing and toys coming in from all over.
Just down the road from MDD’s Santa shop, Montreal advertising and marketing communications firm CHM Communications Inc. has assumed the role of elves by taking on the toy part of MDD’s needs, making smiles at Christmas the order of the day. In fact, CHM has been collecting gifts for needy Montreal children for the past 36 years and in just the past decade has turned over tens of thousands of dollars of gifts each year to the venerable Montreal Diet Dispensary. That’s a lot of smiles.
As CHM enters its 41st campaign, company President Sandy Milroy says the drive never gets easier. “After all this time, it’s still the same,” says Milroy. “We start with nothing and aim to get close to 2000-3000 gifts. MDD has a need and we’ve stepped in to fill that need.”
MDD’s executive director Marie-Paule Duquette says: “...hundreds of families benefited... and, for many of them, it had been a long time since someone remembered them at Christmas. The children’s eyes shone like Christmas trees when they came to pick up their presents. You really have brightened their eyes.”
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SKATE WITH SANTA IS BACK!
CHM's Christmas 2023 effort includes the popular Bring Some Joy, Give A Toy Skate With Santa event, held at the Lower Canada College rink at 4099 Royal Ave. in NDG on Sunday December 10 from 2:30-4:00 pm.
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Gifts are collected in several ways, not just at the Skate With Santa. "Students at Lower Canada College have helped out in a big way for the many years, LCC Alumni are helping, as have CHM clients, and many toy companies… we make a lot of calls.”
The Montreal Diet Dispensary
Founded in 1879, the Montreal Diet Dispensary is Quebec's leader in social nutrition for pregnant women in difficult circumstances. Each year, the Dispensary helps on average 1,200 of these women in the Greater Montreal to eat properly during pregnancy, to give birth to healthy babies and to foster optimal development of their children.
Their innovative interventions in nutrition counselling, perinatal education and support, and community development make families feel empowered. Beginning as a soup kitchen, MDD quickly became specialized in nutrition education and a defender of the all low-income citizens.
During the 1950s it became focused on helping needy pregnant women. It offers the professional services of dietitians, community workers and lactation and perinatal consultants, as well as providing supplements of milk, eggs, multivitamins and food received from Moisson Montréal. The organization offers prenatal workshops and various group activities on health, positive parental practices and child development..
Surprisingly, The Montreal Diet Dispensary (MDD) and CHM Communications Inc., have quite a few things in common. They’re both located on Lincoln Avenue in downtown Montreal. They both run their operations out of old houses rather than traditional office spaces. They both were established in ’79, though being a century older, MDD’s birth date is 1879 compared to CHM’s 1979! And they’re linked in serving the needs of Montrealers.
CHM Communications Inc. – celebrating its 44th anniversary this year– is a Montreal-based advertising and marketing communications firm serving clients regionally, nationally and internationally in a variety of industries.
For additional information, please contact one of the following
via email:
Sandy Milroy (smilroy589@aol.com)
Elaine Mackasey (emackasey@chmcommunications.com)
Lawrence Kirsch (lkirsch@chmcommunications.com)
Marc Guerbilsky (mguerbilsky@chmcommunications.com)
Sandra Hellyer (ladyrubicon@videotron.ca)
Also visit www.ddm-mdd.org
