Organizations often come together this time of year to bring people in need some holiday cheer.
The Active 20-30 Club and the Child Guidance Clinic brought Christmas a few days early to 128 local families in need, which included 366 children on Saturday.
Gifts, Christmas trees, ornaments and a little something extra for the parents, were delivered to bring joy to those who wouldn't otherwise have had any gifts to open this year.
"There's also a 50 dollar gift card for Walmart in here to kind of help you guys out toward Christmas dinner," Past Active 20-30 President Bryan Oberg said as he handed a stocking to one of the parents he and his team were helping out.
The kids were grateful to have gotten presents, but their parents expressed a stronger kind of gratitude. Thanks to these organizations coming together, their kids had something to look forward to this holiday season.
"We really are appreciative. We're in a little bit of a tight spot with these three children so every little bit helps," Mike Queen, one of the donation recipients said.
The gift deliveries were only the end result of the Christmas Experience.
"Just by a show of hands who is new this year and has never done our Christmas Experience? Wow! So it's about half of you guys... Thank you guys for all coming out," Oberg gave numerous volunteers at Walmart on Rosedale instructions last week on how they would be shopping for hundreds of gifts.
Immediately following the shopping event, volunteers headed to Truxtun Avenue to wrap all the presents they had just bought.
Every group of volunteers was assigned a family to shop for with a budget of $100 per child. Volunteers bought items from a wish list at their discretion.
"What we're actually looking at right now is our 13-year-old I guess is a basketball player... likes basketball so we're thinking about getting him a new basketball for when he goes to the park or whatever and plays," Taylor White, 1st Vice President of the Active 20-30 Club said as he shopped with his son.
The end result: hundreds of families filled with gratitude, and volunteers humbled by the experience.
