The Christmas JOY Home Tour is a self-guided tour of carefully selected homes that have been professionally decorated for the holiday season. This year we will celebrate our 7th year for the Christmas JOY Home Tour and the 3rd year for our Gala. Each year the tour grows and develops in innovative ways, adding new things for our tour attendees to enjoy. Last year we welcomed just over 1,000 people on the tour from all over Southwestern Ontario. We have been blessed to have support from many local businesses as they contribute to the tour in many ways such as adding beautiful, seasonal décor to our homes and providing wonderful food for sampling. This year we will feature a variety of amazing properties in Guelph. Each home is unique in its layout, design style and size. We strive to offer a wide variety of homes on the tour, each professionally decorated for the Christmas season.

As the JOY Home Tour continues to grow so do the ways in which we reach out with the monies raised to impact our community and help those in need. Some of our projects include:

The Running and Reading Club, which falls under the umbrella of Start 2 Finish, works in high needs elementary schools to help children from low income or under-resourced families. This integrated program based on literacy, character development and physical activity provides children with the opportunity to dream and to set and achieve goals. Kids should believe there is nothing they cannot accomplish. Over 50 kids participated in the program and worked towards the end of year 5 km race.

The Lakeside Food Pantry and benevolence fund offers non-perishable food and occasional financial help to many local families. The food pantry is an established pantry in Guelph that provides non-perishable food, hygiene and cleaning products, fruits and vegetables and grocery gift cards to those living in poverty in our city. We tailor our food hampers to meet the needs of the individual family such as providing snacks and lunch items to families that have children in school. Each family is able to access the food pantry on a monthly basis. 2011 has seen the food pantry double in people helped month over month.

Back-to-School Backpack Program is an established project in Guelph that provides backpacks and all necessary items required by children when they begin a new school year. We believe that each child should be prepared to begin the school year with the necessary tools that will give them confidence that they have what it takes to succeed.

The Christmas Hamper Bureau is made up of many local agencies, neighbourhood group and churches in the city that work together to provide a Christmas hamper to families who would otherwise not have a Christmas. The hamper includes a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, groceries for their family and gifts for the children. In 2010, Lakeside provided 162 hampers to those in need.