When Karen Moss’s mother Pauline arrived in Toronto as a 10-year-old from England in the 1950s, there weren’t a lot of extras.

“They had a hard time just making sure there was food on the table. They really didn’t have much,” said Moss of her mother’s family.

After all, with seven kids to feed in a family that would soon expand to 11, money didn’t go far. At Christmas time, they didn’t dare dream of gifts under the tree.

But shortly before their first Canadian Christmas, there was a knock on the door of the family’s apartment. A stranger was there, with a gift-wrapped green box for each of the kids, filled with sweaters, socks, colouring books, crayons, and most precious of all, jelly beans.

“If we didn’t get those, we would’ve thought Santa Claus had forgotten us,” Moss recalls her mother saying. While the parents were grateful for the warm clothes, the kids were most delighted by the rare sight of jelly beans.

The boxes were from the Star Santa Claus fund. The fund, which started in 1906, provides gift boxes for 45,000 children in need across the Greater Toronto Area. Donations from Star readers help pay for the gifts which fill the boxes. Every cent donated goes toward the gifts; the Star pays all administrative costs for the fund. The Santa Claus Fund’s 2019 fundraising goal is $1.7 million and 100 per cent of donations go to the gift boxes. The Toronto Star covers all over costs. Donations are accepted until Christmas Eve, and every donor will receive a tax receipt in January.

To this day, Moss’s mother still isn’t sure which neighbour gave the family’s address to the Santa Claus fund. But she’s still grateful, and so is Moss, who has donated to the Santa Claus fund for years.

This year, Moss decided to also give back by volunteering — along with 15 colleagues from Hewlett Packard Enterprise Canada — to help pack up the boxes.

“It really meant so much to do something that was so meaningful to my family’s history. It helped make them feel welcome in this country,” said Moss, who went back for a second turn volunteering with her husband after packing boxes with her colleagues.

All these years later, her mother had one question about the boxes.

“She asked if the boxes still had those big green ribbons. She was a little disappointed that they didn’t. But she remembers those boxes like it was yesterday. It really made a difference.”