Since the 1940’s, the Canton Goodfellows have provided Christmas gifts to thousands of less fortunate children in Canton Township.

WHAT WE DOIMG_4706 KARI cropped

Canton Goodfellows is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to providing Christmas gifts to children in Canton, Michigan at Christmas time. We also provide gift cards so that parents can purchase food for the holiday. We provide this assistance to families without regard to the family’s religious preference

Thanks to the support from our community, countless people help us by collecting toy donations, working at our Holiday Market Food Drive, sponsoring children, volunteering to help us when our child sponsors drop off their bags, designating us as their Kroger Community Rewards recipient,  and by making monetary donations.

Here’s what one parent who received assistance for their children had to say:

Thanks for making my kids so happy. Seeing the smiles on their faces, these are  the moments that live forever in our minds.

Thanks Canton Goodfellows for the memories!

Over the years, we’ve helped Canton families with children enjoy Christmas. With your support, we can help even more!

HOW “NO CHILD WITHOUT A CHRISTMAS” WORKS

FIRST, NOTE THESE TWO CHANGES STARTING IN 2025:

  • Our Applications for Christmas Assistance will be available starting in LATE AUGUST, rather than the usual mid September date. They will still  have to be submitted by a mid October date.
  • In addition, our Applications will ONLY be AVAILABLE ONLINE. There will be no copies for printing or for picking up, as there were in past years.

 Online Applications are made available to Canton families wanting to get assistance for their children at Christmas. Submitted applications are screened based upon our family income guidelines, among other qualifications.

Children are sponsored by community members who purchase toys for the child. Over the years, we’ve been fortunate to have many individuals and organizations sponsor several children.

Using money raised through fundraisers and donations, we purchase any toys not supplied by our sponsors. We also purchase food gift cards for each family for the holiday season.

In early December, we prepare the gifts and food boxes for pickup by our families.

Since gifts are left unwrapped (so that parents can see what was bought for their children), we provide holiday wrapping paper and tape.

BOARD MEMBERS

Our Board Members are elected each year during our Annual Meeting in March.

  • President:             Kelli Lauria
  • Vice President:   Nila Patel
  • Treasurer:            Michael Theisen
  • Director:               Kal Hakkani 
  • Director:               John Spencer
  • Director:               Cam Nellett
  • Director:               Jayshri Bhakta

OUR MEETINGS

The Canton Goodfellows meetings are held on Thursdays in the Canton Municipal Building, 1105 Canton Canter Rd, at 7:00 PM in Room C (Lower Level). You are more than welcome to join us, in order to find out more about our organization!

We are currently looking for additional members who are willing to help in implementing new ideas.

  • March 20, 2025 (Annual Meeting)
  • August 14, 2025
  • Sept 18, 2025
  • Oct 9, 2025
  • Nov 13, 2025

FINANCIAL REPORT

In compliance with the Canton Goodfellows Bylaws, our fiscal year begins on April 1 and ends on March 31.

Our 2024 Campaign Financial Report , ending on March 31, 2024 indicates that

  • 88% of our expenditures went toward our “No Child Without a Christmas” Program
  •  1% went toward Fundraising
  • 11% went toward Supplies, Dues, Fees, and Board Insurance.  

All of our Canton Goodfellows Members, including those on the Board, are unpaid volunteers.

OUR HISTORY

For over 70 years, Canton Goodfellows has provided help and support for community members.

The group got its start in the 1940’s when Canton residents Edward Hauk and Robert Waldecker, who volunteered with Plymouth Goodfellows, decided to start Canton Goodfellows.

In the early years, the two men would go door-to-door, asking for donations for Canton residents in need.

A Canton Goodfellows paper was printed in 1954 and sold for donations. Money raised through the paper sales was used to support the Goodfellows goal of “No Child Without a Christmas.”

Today, many people in Canton know of the Goodfellows work through Nancy Spencer, who began volunteering with Canton Goodfellows in the mid-1980’s.

She and Ruth Wiles, who served as secretary, organized the annual paper sale which became Canton Goodfellows main source of money.

Families would receive food boxes and clothing vouchers they could use at the K-Mart store (now replaced by Kohl’s), located at Ford and Sheldon.

In the 1990’s Nancy became president of Canton Goodfellows, a position she held until she died in 2012. She reached out to many members of the community, businesses, and public schools as she recruited volunteers to help the program grow.

To help with gifts for the children, she started the adopt-a-child program, which is now our sponsor a child program.

In 2013 John Spencer, Nancy’s husband, was voted in as president. 

During Nancy Spencer’s tenure, all of the program processes and record keeping had been done by hand. Following her death, some members joined forces to revise the program into a more streamlined, computerized format. Spearheaded by Natalie Anderson-Theisen, new forms and computer files were created. Those changes have served us well throughout the years.

In March of 2018, John Spencer decided it was time to pass the Presidency on to someone else. Natalie Anderson-Theisen was voted in as President in that year, while she continued to improve our overall system.

In 2023, Natalie decided that it was time for her to hand over the Presidency to the “next generation” of Canton Goodfellows. 

In preparation for this change, some of our younger members felt that our data input method needed to be streamlined. To lessen the time spent on manually inputting the data, they created a new, online Application process, which was implemented in 2023. This new process proved to be a huge success! 

The foundation of our many years of successful “No Child Without a Christmas” campaigns lies, without a doubt, in the hearts and talents of our dedicated Canton Goodfellows members.