Christmas Program 2023
December 20, 2023
The many weeks of preparations for the Friendship House Christmas Program came to a close as families came to pick up their meals and gifts from our team of volunteers. The program is an annual tradition at Friendship House for families needing a little help around the holidays. The organization and planning begins at the close of summer with the goal that families have gifts and food for their Christmas.
This year, as in years past, families were provided with filled Christmas stockings, children’s gifts and clothing items, a family game, and all the ingredients for a hearty family meal. Friendship House does not accomplish this alone! Giving Trees, hosted by many local businesses and churches welcome people to take a tag that describes a needed toy. People from all over our communities make it part of their holiday tradition to donate a toy. Businesses are generous in their help and support and still others stop in, say hello and bring a donation.
Our team of volunteers pulls everything together; all the toys and donations. Starting immediately after Thanksgiving, the volunteers start transitioning the Thrift Shop into a veritable “Santa’s Workshop”. Toys are arranged by age group, clothing arranged by sizes and stockings are stuffed with goodies based on the age of the recipient. Meanwhile, the Christmas Program Registration is open online and families begin to tell us how many children are in their families, what type of gifts they might like and their sizes. Once the registration closes, the team gets to work! Every child is matched with toys and clothing and packages (let’s not forget the beautiful quilts too!) are put together for each family - including everything needed for a holiday meal. This year the volunteers kept track of 150 families with 230 children! That’s a lot of requests to fill but the volunteers were organized, ready and more than willing.
Our heartfelt thanks go out to all those who support the Friendship House Christmas Program including the volunteers who give endlessly of their time and effort to bring a happier Christmas Holiday to our community.
