Christmas for Kids 2003

By Curt Cunningham
December 26, 2003

We have completed the 2003 Christmas for Kids program. This year we helped 37 families with a total of 97 children. We had 20 volunteers assist us in interviewing, wrapping and other essential duties that make this program a success. I personally thank all these volunteers for their help as well as all the people and businesses that donated money to the program. I also thank the entire Local 19 membership for continuing to assess themselves $2 a month to keep the program alive. I also want to thank my wife Leona for putting in many hours purchasing, wrapping and making sure all the children get the correct gift.

This year we chose Plateau Outreach Ministries in Enumclaw. They are a community center and food bank, which helps over 400 families a month. After interviewing the center we decided to give them a check for $5,000.00 as they were very low on funds due to lack of donations. Michael Cummings the Executive Director thanked us for helping them and said that it would help many people. He also assisted us in interviewing some families in the area. We also gave a $500 donation to KIRO for their Christmas for Kids program.

We had a few individual donors this year. Local 98 donated $1,000, Mike Hofeling $750, Bridge warehouse $100 and $240 came from Local 19 members.

During the December Stop-work meeting my wife Leona had a wrapping party to wrap the first 12 families. Then she shopped the next day for another 13 families and wrapped them by herself. We then received applications for the last 12 families on the 12^th. We purchased the gifts and wrapped them all on the 16^th.

On the 19^th we had a Christmas party for the locked out Darigold workers. There were 15 families that we helped this year and 11 families showed up for our party. We all had such a good time and everyone was very appreciative of the gifts we gave to them. From Sunday the 21^st through the 23^rd my wife and I delivered the remaining packages.