Holy Family is Home

Life can change in an instant. Our Mom, Joanne, left Winnipeg for a vacation active, healthy and looking forward to Christmas. Four weeks later, she was flown back to Winnipeg, paralyzed, non-verbal, and needing intensive care following a massive stroke.

An instant.

As she healed in hospital, it became clear Mom would need more care than our Dad, Lawrence, could provide at home. So she went to the next best thing: Holy Family Home, which had been her second home of sorts for more than 30 years, as a volunteer, Board chair, and frequent visitor. Fun fact: she started the Festival of Lights, to invite people like you to help make Holy Family an even more special place.

If you’ve experienced Holy Family Home, you know it is special. And it still needs help from special people like you.

While unable to speak, Mom regained some movement and found ways to communicate. And we learned that she could still sing! So we sang as much as we could. Happy Birthday never sounded so good.

Shortly after, Dad decided to sell the house and move to the Holy Family Seniors Tower so he’d be closer to Mom. Two days after he got the keys, he fell down the stairs.

An instant.

So Dad also moved to Holy Family. Our parents would sit next to each other in the Auditorium (they LOVED bingo) and during performances in the Atrium. I can still see Dad holding Mom’s hand, while she tapped along with the other.

This is where you come in.

Living in a care home can be challenging. You’re on someone else’s schedule. You’re dependent on others for help with basic functions. So the ability to have some control over things we might take for granted – like where and what to eat – is incredibly important.

The team at Holy Family has been working with the Residents’ Council – a group of volunteers who live at the Home and represent their neighbours on issues that impact them, like food, activities and programs – to introduce more choice at meal times.

At the dining tables, rather than having drinks already on the trays, residents are now offered a choice of juice or water, tea or coffee. They can choose snacks and drinks throughout the day as well.

You can give loved ones who live at the Home even more choice. Your gift to the Festival of Lights 2024 will be used to purchase meal carts with steam trays, so that residents can choose from the day’s hot entrees, and have it served to them right at the table.

So simple, but so important.

Each meal cart costs from $5,000 to $10,000, depending on the size. Holy Family Home needs to purchase 12 so that every unit has one. Would you help to give residents a mealtime choice by making your special gift today – of $1,000, $500, $250 or whatever you can share?

Every opportunity for independence and choice is a good one. While we lost Dad in 2022 and Mom died in July, I know how much they would have loved the meal carts. I can just see Dad asking Mom if she’d like potatoes or pasta, and did she want gravy with her chicken. Sitting there together, like they did at home.

Because Holy Family IS home.

Life can change in an instant. Together we can make sure that when they need it, people like our parents – like yours, like you someday – can live in a special place like Holy Family Home. We will be forever grateful to the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate for founding and leading Holy Family Home, for the incredible staff and volunteers, and for friends like you who believe To Serve is to Love.

On behalf of our extended Huzel family, we wish you and yours God’s abundant blessings this Christmas and throughout 2025.

Sincerely,

Leanne (Huzel) Peleck

If you prefer to read a printed copy, please click here to download Leanne's letter.