Santa’s Elves have wrapped up another holiday season.
The annual wrapping party on Wednesday, Dec. 12 marked the end of collecting donations from the community.
Volunteers from all over were busy wrapping gifts for local boys and girls.
“We had a lot of people turn out. We didn’t have an empty table at all, and everybody was super busy,” expressed BCHS Grade 11 student volunteer Kendra Moore.
The number of people who came was more than BCHS career counsellor and faculty advisor, Kim Buchta, could have imagined, especially with all of the other events happening at the same time.
“(Everybody) was shoulder-to-shoulder, they were wrapping and having fun,” she expressed.
While they don’t have an exact number, because requests were still coming in the day of the event, close to 500 children will be waking up Christmas morning to presents, thanks to Santa’s Elves.
This year, the window to collect donations was short, Moore noted the area rallied to round-up toys for the initiative.
“We had a shorter drop-off season, because our wrapping party was early because Christmas falls on a weird day. The community really came together to bring all the toys in such a short period of time, which was awesome,” she exclaimed.
Stacey Stone attended the event for the first time this year, and brought along her children to remind them the importance of volunteering.
“It’s definitely nice to show them what it’s like to give back, and I explained... to my six-year-old that it’s important to give back, why we came, and why we did attend,” she said.
The program has been offered in the area since 1971, and collects new toys for children from six-months-old to 17-years-old.
Red donation boxes were set-up throughout the community to round-up toys of any shape or size.
Moore said the hardest age to wrap for are the ones on the higher end that they collect for.
“We find every year it’s harder to wrap for all the older kids... Teenagers are always harder to buy for, but we still end up getting a lot of toys and everybody’s really good about it,” she explained.
The outpouring of support has made the program a continued success after so many years.
“We can’t do this ourselves. The community donations that have come in from all over, and the groups that have come in to help us wrap... is pretty amazing,” Buchta expressed. “If it wasn’t for the donations and people out there, we couldn’t do it.”
