True team effort ensures Chronicle’s delivery 

A total of 80 Manor Park residents volunteer to bring paper to your door

Five times a year, the Manor Park Chronicle arrives on your doorstep (or in your mailbox). While most residents appreciate receiving it, few may know about the small army of volunteers it takes to organize, sort and deliver the paper — winter, spring, summer and fall. 

Led by Circulation Manager Sharleen Tattersfield and Delivery Coordinator Jacki Sachrajda, the work begins as soon as the bundled papers arrive from the printer in Winchester, Ont. That’s usually around 2 p.m. on the first or second Wednesday of each publication month. 

Thanks to generous support, St. Columba parish serves as the Chronicle’s distribution centre. The 50-paper bundles are stacked in the centre of the church hall. From here, Jacki and Sharleen — along with assistants Celine Couture, Robert Todd, and Lynn Teeple — set to work, preparing separate bundles for the more than dozen route captains. 

“This takes us two-and-a-half hours, more or less,” Sharleen said. 

During that time, the papers are hand-counted and re-bundled for each area and route, with every bundle marked and highlighted to ensure an accurate count. 

By 4:30 p.m., route captains arrive to collect the bundles of papers they will either deliver themselves or bring to their own delivery volunteers for distribution to homes and businesses over the next day or two. 

In all, 80 Manor Park residents generously volunteer their time. They ensure every residence — more than 3,000 — receives a copy of the Chronicle in a timely manner. 

In addition, there are dozens of commercial locations, in and around Manor Park, where another 2,000 copies get distributed. Again, this requires the dedication of volunteers who drop off the papers to wherever they are welcome.

Finally, more than 30 copies are mailed to out-of-area advertisers who might not otherwise receive the paper. This work is done by long-time volunteer Jim Kenward. 

“They all get a copy, and I know they appreciate it,” Sharleen said. 

Bundling team

Jacki says she took on the coordinator’s role in 2020 “after a lovely chat” with Sharleen.

“I was very apprehensive at first, but I got loads of help from Sharleen and the team!” she said. 

One key duty is closely monitoring “who can or cannot deliver each issue to make sure it all gets delivered in a timely way!”

The challenges are many, with so many moving parts, but Jacki wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“I enjoy feeling part of the Manor Park community, meeting and working with amazing volunteers and being part of bringing something special to Manor Park residents.”

Celine Couture says she started volunteering with her son Mathieu about five or six years ago. 

“He was in high school and needed the volunteer hours,” she recalled. 

Today, her son is set to complete his Master’s degree. Still, he finds time to help out with delivery of the paper with his mother. 

Celine says she’s enjoyed the role she plays preparing the bundles for the route captains, and the friendships she’s developed over that time. 

“It’s a great group,” added Lynn Teeple, another five-year bundling volunteer.

She says she joined when a neighbour asked if she’d like to volunteer. She didn’t know what was involved but enjoyed the work right away. Lynn also doubles as the Area E Route Captain and delivers papers in the Hemlock and St. Laurent area.

Most challenging

The most challenging, and perhaps most rewarding, distribution of the Chronicle came during the first winter of the pandemic. 

With restrictions in place due to COVID-19, the intrepid distribution group, dubbed the “Chronicle Garage Gang,” gathered outdoors. It was -20C, “so really, really chilly,” Jacki recalls. There, the masked crusaders spent several hours in an open garage at a residence on Thornwood Road, preparing the bundles for route captains and their volunteer distributors.

“To keep warm while awaiting the truck, the team gathered outside the garage to catch whatever warmth they could absorb from the distant January sun — and resorted to “some pretty weird calisthenics” to restore circulation in numbed extremities,” noted the report in the Chronicle’s March-April 2021 edition.

It’s a memory the team says will stay with them forever.