For the past decade, Amanda Johnston has been spreading Christmas joy to children and their families at the Sault Area Hospital's NICU and paediatric wing.
Sault mom Amanda Johnston — accompanied by Santa Claus — made Christmas merrier for children and their families at Sault Area Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ( NICU ) and paediatric wing Monday. For 10 consecutive years, Johnston has delivered bags stuffed with Christmas gifts for children who are hospitalized and can't be at home with their families — along with gift cards for their parents who sit at their bedsides — at this special time of year.
As in past years, the gifts were purchased with funds raised through the One Stop Christmas Show — a craft show and silent auction organized by Johnston — held this year Nov. 23 and 24 at Quattro Hotel & Conference Centre. The show raised nearly $8,000 this year. The shows have raised almost $80,000 over the past 10 years. “I received the list of children from the hospital earlier and then I went out shopping for them,' Johnston told SooToday. 'I shopped at Best Buy, Walmart and Giant Tiger over the past week and at 8 a.m. this morning.' Johnston purchased Nintendo Switch gaming consoles, Leapsters, Princess toys, Teddy Bears, Fujifilm cameras, baby monitors, decorative blankets, diapers and other baby items and hundreds of dollars in gift cards for their parents from stores such as Walmart and gas stations. Johnston knows what the children and their parents are going through. 'My own daughter Brooke was born at 25 weeks in November 2008 and she weighed a pound and 13 ounces,' Johnston told SooToday in December 2015. She was born here in the Sault but we can't treat babies that small in the Sault so we had to go out of town and we were away from home at Christmas. We spent 176 days in a NICU in London.' Brooke is now 16. “She’s good,” Johnston said Monday when asked of her daughter’s condition. Johnston was accompanied by fellow Sault mom and friend Heather Hilderley-Phillips for the first seven years of Christmas shopping missions for sick children at SA
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