The City of Cambridge’s Toys for Tickets program is all good to go and ready to make Christmas better for the needy families scattered across the city.

And Cambridge’s citizens definitely stepped up to the plate by making donations, with city firefighters amassing more than $3,000 worth of new toys from under the City Hall’s giant Christmas tree located at the atrium on Wednesday.

The massive collection of toys was then sent to Cambridge Firefighters’ Basket Fund campaign, which wrapped up a couple of days ago.

Toy’s for Tickets is a toy-raising campaign that gives people with parking tickets the chance to donate a toy to charity, instead of paying a fee.

According to the city’s manager of parking operations Dave Maidment, everyone who took part in the program was more than happy to do so. In fact, some folks from other municipalities were asking if they could pay their parking tickets here in Cambridge!

All in all, approximately 289 toys were amassed via the campaign. These toys are estimated to be equivalent to 210 tickets. Furthermore, the program received toys from non ticket holders – individuals who simply wanted to help out.

Looks like Christmas might be special this year for Cambridge’s less fortunate after all.

With Christmas just around the corner and the year coming close to an end, volunteers from the Cambridge Memorial Hospital Foundation have been very busy opening letters and sorting donations for Cambridge’s Trees of Caring fund.

According to the foundation’s Executive Director Ingrid Town, she and her pack of volunteers receive around 9 to 10 thousand letters with donations everyday. And with each day getting closer to Christmas, she expects that number to get even higher.

And yet with the horde of letters coming in non-stop, Town still holds some worries about the foundation not making the goal of raising $200,000 this year. With less then a week to go before the Big Day, the foundation has just made the halfway mark at $108,000.

The yearly Trees of Caring campaign is a fundraiser that encourages people to donate $10 to help light up one of three massive Christmas trees in front of Cambridge Memorial Hospital. Hospital patients see the three evergreens as a source of happiness; and doctors as well nurses understand that the trees do have a way of lifting their sprits.

Due to tough economic times, the foundation, like most charities in the country, has been affected significantly, with less people being able to set aside money for donations.

Right now the foundation is appealing to the public to help out their cause. Fortunately, an anonymous person was kind enough to step up to the plate and donate $5000.

Town hopes this is just the start of a good run before Christmas finally arrives.

The Holidays may be a time to rest for some, but others see the end of the year as the best time to make preparations for the next.

Even though it’s still 2 months away, the local area’s Rotary Club of Cambridge Sunrise is already making preparations for the yearly Sunrise Bonanza Draw, which is set to take place on February 13, 2010.

Organizers are encouraging folks to take part in the raffle, and should they choose to sign up, fabulous prizes await them. Among the items to be raffled away is a fancy 14K Gold 2CT diamond tennis bracelet, an Acer Net Book, a Honda snow blower, a Home Depot home improvement package and gift certificates from The Blackshop & 20 different Hobson Street restaurants.

Tickets are priced at $5 each, three for $10 or eight for $20. Talk about a bargain! So what are you waiting for? Score your tickets while it’s still early!

The raffle draw is slated to take place together with the rotary organization’s big event titled Midwinter’s Night Gala, which is happening on the 13th of February, at exactly 11 in the evening, at the Cambridge Holiday Inn.

For more details and information on the raffle and draw date, log on to www.cambridgesunriserotary.com.

Cambridge’s firefighters may be used to the hard and dangerous task of killing fires on a regular basis, but their toughest challenge for this year comes with the annual Cambridge Firefighters’ Basket Fund campaign.

Each year, Cambridge firefighters work in cooperation with the Salvation Army and Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank to make Christmas special for the less fortunate. Each faction receives a separate list of families to help, with the firefighters assigned to give families with 3 or 4 people free hampers and other necessities.

This year the firefighters find themselves overwhelmed with the number of families in need. From 480 families last year, that number has jumped to 638 today – and it’s expected that the number of families needing help will continue to rise over the next few days.

According to Platoon Chief and campaign organizer Walter MacNeil, his squad of firefighters are in serious need of help.

And that’s exactly what they received when Cambridge residents stepped up and pitched in on the cause.

You too can help Cambridge’s firefighters by dropping off toys, non-perishable food items, clothes, and other necessities to any Cambridge fire station. For cash and cheque donations, head to the Cambridge Fire Department headquarters.

Cambridge residents are in for a whole new Yuletide experience that brings together the best of all things that come with the Holiday Season.

On the 19th of December, 2009, Cambridge’s renowned Community Orchestra brings you something extra-special to end your year on a good and memorable note.

Christmas on the Grand, New Year’s on the Danube is a presentation that combines the celebration of Christmas with well-known traditional favorites of the past and New Year selections from Vienna like the The Beautiful Blue Danube, Radetzky March, and more.

Spectators are in for a treat as the Cambridge Community Orchestra brings the Spirit of Christmas, while adding a dash of New Year cheer with the mix of two holiday concerts into one mega-production.

In addition, the concert will be graced by the magical dancers from Michele Hopkins’ Dance Studio – adding their artistic flair as they perform to excerpts from the popular Nutcracker. Acclaimed soprano Marion Samuel-Stevens will also be featured as the concert’s soloist.

Christmas on the Grand, New Year’s on the Danube will take place in Forward Baptist Church, located in Cambridge.

But it even gets better. Admission to the show is absolutely free, so you’ve got no excuse not to bring your family and friends along with you for a night to remember.

The City of Cambridge has its own unofficial list of bad roads and intersections that have earned complaints from the city’s locals.

The good news is that a new program is now in the works, with the aim of correcting these problems, and improving the safety of drivers and commuters in Cambridge.

Just recently, City Officials have released an updated report on the plan’s progress.
During discussions of the new program, city engineers and their staff looked up traffic volume on certain areas, collisions and accidents, and road characteristics to put up a streamlined system designed to monitor street safety.

Shannon Noonan, who is the manager of the city’s transportation engineering department, says that 10 corners and 10 road sections have been identified and marked as priority projects once funding is made possible.

Three new projects are now slated to begin in August next year to improve road safety while another one developed by the Waterloo region is for the installation of new traffic lights.

2010 looks to be exciting for Cambridge once these projects take off. With the region finally taking a pro-active stance on road safety, local drivers and commuters can rest easy while plying the roads of Cambridge.

To increase police presence in the region that includes Cambridge, a plan was set forth by the Waterloo Regional Police at a regular budget meeting that was held just recently. The plan called for the recruitment of 20 new police offers for the year 2010.

In a move that was considered controversial by some, Police Chief Matt Torigian requested for more officers next year, even with talks of cutting back the police force’s budget for 2010 taking place earlier.

Furthermore, Chief Torigian also requested to add 24 civilian staff between the months of May and November. According to him, Waterloo’s police officers are spending too much time answering phone calls instead of patrolling the streets, preventing crime, and keeping an eye on traffic.

Councilors in the region however, are hesitant to allocate a budget for hiring new staff. The economic crisis according to them, has affected the region significantly, and tax revenues are almost at a record low. They also note Cambridge and its surrounding areas have the fourth fourth-lowest crime rate in Canada.

Chief Torigian understands this, he said. He commented that the police have already reduced their budget. However, he says there is a need for more officers to make the police force run more efficiently.

A few weeks back, local residents in Cambridge commented on the tolerable (almost nice actually) weather, hoping for it to continue over until the start of the New Year. Mother Nature however, had other plans as the winter season finally made its presence fully felt in the city.

In November, the city of Cambridge tied the standing record for the least amount of snowfall in the area, but all that has changed in the past few days as the city has had a spike in vehicular accidents (over 108 in fact) due to bad weather, with 15 of them causing significant injuries and other last minute adjustments and cancellations in the city.

Authorities have urged the public to make preparations and changes to their cars and driving habits, with many caught unaware by the sudden shift in weather.

The accidents are largely attributed to the fact that Cambridge has been lucky enough to be spared from the onslaught other Ontario cities have been experiencing over the past few weeks. The sudden snow storm has caught many individuals off-guard.

According to public affairs coordinator for the Waterloo Regional Police Olaf Heinzel, people need to slow down, brake more often, and adjust to the road hazards brought about by Old Man Winter’s arrival.

With both demand and supplies of H1N1 vaccines decreasing, health officials in the Ontario region are preparing to give away the last batch of immunizations, and are currently in the planning stage for the final round of flu clinics, with one located in Cambridge.

According to Lu-Ann Procter, coordinator of communications for the Waterloo Region’s Public Health office, health officials want to end the year with a sigh of relief, using this opportunity to promote efforts to stop the spread of the dreaded disease.

For the city of Cambridge, vaccines for the common flu and influenza A-H1N1 will be given away on a clinic that is set to open on December 14, from 2 in the afternoon to 8 in the evening. The clinic will be held at Jacob Hespeler Secondary School, situated along 355 Holiday Inn Drive.

And while vaccinations will still be given away in the new year, they can only be recieved from local physicians and hospitals – as free clinics might no longer be held in 2010, this according to health authorities in the region.

To get more information on H1N1 immunization clinics in the area, you can log on to the Waterloo Region Pandemic site at www.waterlooregionpandemic.ca.

Some great news for Cambridge residents, the Olympic Torch Relay is set to make its way through the city on the 27th of December, just a few months away from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia – making it the third Olympics to be held in Canada.

Cambridge organizers are currently busy preparing and planning a series of events to coincide with the Torch Relay, with extreme trampoline tricks and Polar Bear swims to take place on the same day.

And while an actual route of the relay has yet to be announced, Organizers and Winter Olympics coordinators expect huge crowds to show up and watch the rare spectacle.
Event coordinators are encouraging spectators to come out and show their support by wearing red jerseys, red hats, red gloves, and anything else that’s red and white. Noisemakers and banners are also welcome.

To counter the high number of people expected to show up, city and region officials are making arrangements for people to be brought in by bus, saving everybody the hassle of hunting for parking spaces on that day.

Representing the city of Cambridge are Sharon Murphy, who runs a foot-care clinic for seniors in the area, Jane Black, who is the vice-chairman of the city’s board of Nutrition and Learning, and the youngest torchbearer Becca Stap, a 10th grader from Preston High.

The event is only days away, so if you want to be part of the festivities, come on up to Cambridge!