Letter: The food bank powered through a power outage

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Editor,

I don’t often get to send a thank you via the newspaper to the amazing staff and volunteers who make Good Cheer great.

However, this year’s Children’s Chance to Give events were exceptional and deserve a special thank you.

For two nights the thrift stores opened to kids who were able to use a Good Cheer gift “card” to buy presents for family members.

On Thursday night, Langley welcomed kids ages 4-16 who were provided with shopping services by Santa’s helpers, attended to by friendly “cashiers” who helped kids spend within their limits, and assisted by creative wrappers who sent the kids home with gifts wrapped in personally selected paper and bows, all ready to be opened.

On Friday, a similar group attended the event and volunteers (some of whom returned for a second night) were kept busy with the same tasks at the Good Cheer Two store in Clinton.

Before the evening ended, however, the store lost power.

Frightened kids and parents were quickly reassured when, after realizing the outage was more than a flicker, cellphone and stand-alone flashlights were rapidly put into service and the shopping and wrapping continued despite the compromised quality of light.

I tried but could not thank everyone who continued to work through the power failure. Special recognition for grit and tenacity goes to Tyler, Linda Jacobson and husband, Chris Williams, Andrew Riggs, Allison Yoder, Mariah Beard, Cynde Robinson, Faye and Jim Lovvorn, John Lawson, Nytai, Lisa, Christi Landrum, Brandi Blais Terry Desrosiers, Bobbi Weitzel, Penny Hanna, Sage Costa, Reed and Kyle Kaltenbach, and Cat and Dana from the VA Resource Center. I’m sorry if I missed the name of any volunteers who worked in the dark.

And to everyone who worked on these two events, please accept this note as my heartfelt thanks to all the staff and volunteers for an over-the-top commitment to making these kids happy.

Kathryn Stevens

Langley