MONROE — Even COVID-19 can’t stop the spirit of giving during the holiday season in Monroe. 

Despite the challenges brought on by the pandemic, the Monroe Woman’s Club Christmas Stocking Project has been able to continue to operate, with COVID safety-related changes in place.

With the aim of preventing the spread of the virus, the last two years have brought alterations to a range of aspects of the Christmas Stocking — from how the project handles care packages, food and cheer boxes, to the ways the community can donate. 

Despite the differences between how the program has run in 2020 and 2021 compared to previous years, “we’re still operating at full force,” said Cindy Ditter, of the Christmas Stocking Project.

The project is still helping ensure that locals have access to holiday meals, gifts, new clothing and winter attire — as per the usual.

The group has now created a Facebook page, called Monroe Christmas Stocking Fund, to keep the community updated on the happenings of the annual holiday project and to provide another option for those seeking to donate to the cause. 

“We’re trying to make it as easy as possible” to contribute for those who want to do so, Ditter said. 

On the left side of the page, there is a link to a site where it is possible to donate directly to the Christmas Stocking online using a debit or credit card. 

In 2021, as in 2020, the Christmas project is also accepting monetary donations in lieu of toys for the Stocking’s toy drive, said Marilyn Pfarr, of the Christmas Stocking.

During pre-COVID years, some local businesses would put out boxes to allow members of the community to donate toys for the children who the Christmas Stocking provides presents to. Then, shopper volunteers would match up donated items with the items on the participants’ wish lists. 

After that, the shoppers purchased some gifts the kids wanted that weren’t donated. 

As a COVID-related safety measure, in 2020 and 2021, the project is not collecting toy donations, and there are no shoppers buying items for the kids. 

Instead, the Christmas Stocking is sending coupons to participants that allow them to purchase items at participating stores. 

The coupons are each for designated purposes. There are ones for toys, coats and shoes, for instance, Pfarr said. 

The Christmas Stocking reimburses the stores for the coupon prices to ensure that participants can still receive the same items they would have in an earlier year, just in a different way, she added. 

A bright side of this change is that now parents can pick out exactly what their kids want for the holiday, Pfarr said. 

Along with the no-volunteer-shoppers change, the stocking project has not been bringing in volunteers to pack and deliver food boxes since pre-2020 due to the COVID-19 situation.

Generally, people of all ages would come together to assemble food items into containers for participants, and then additional volunteers would hand-deliver them to the proper homes for the holiday. 

“Last year, we had to make a major change due to the pandemic, and this year things are iffy enough that we’re going to follow the same protocols we did last year,” said Jennifer Spielman, of the Christmas Stocking Project.

Last year, Maple Leaf Cheese packed the boxes to ensure that COVID-approved packing protocols were in place to maximize safety. Participants picked up their boxes themselves. 

“We will be following that same basic procedure” in 2021, Spielman said. “... It worked very slick last year.”

Families will also each be getting a $20 coupon to buy their meat of choice.

Because of COVID procedures, they are not able to include homemade cookies in the boxes as they have in previous years, Spielman said.

Teri Hartwig, who has been volunteering alongside her mom with the Christmas Stocking for 50-plus years, used to help pack up hundreds of dozens of cookies for the program, as a kid. “The hardest thing was we could only pack them, we couldn’t eat them,” she chuckled.

Homemade cookies won’t be able to go in cheer boxes for participants in 2021 either, said Monda Hess, of the Christmas Stocking. 

The project was able to get a discount on packaged Grandma’s Cookies, however, so those will replace them. 

There won’t be fresh fruits in the cheer boxes, either, Hess said. Volunteers are packing some of the boxes up to 21 days in advance of delivery to help prevent the potential for spreading COVID-19. 

Rather than packing all the cheer boxes in one day now, as was the norm previously, volunteers in 2021 are packing items including everything from pudding, to jars of syrup, to applesauce and more, in six-person shifts throughout the course of a couple of weeks, Hess said. 

They are wearing masks and gloves, using hand sanitizer often, and sealing bags with items as additional safety precautions, she added.

They are also still providing care packages filled with donated gripper socks and a choice of conditioner, lotion or shampoo in 2021. 

To add another layer of protection, changes to how the Christmas Stocking delivers items in this realm of the project are now in place. 

Rather than going door-to-door to provide residents of facilities and homes they contribute to with their items as they could in the days before COVID, they are now calling the locations when they arrive, and representatives of the sites are collecting the donations from the Christmas Stocking volunteers’ vehicles. Some are then holding them for a time before distributing them, for safety’s sake. 

Unfortunately, that means the Christmas Stocking volunteers are now unable to visit the elderly individuals who they used to sometimes spend hours with when they dropped off the contributions. That was the only visit and gift some may have gotten during the holidays, Hess said, commenting that she is hoping they can eventually revert to doing face-to-face drop-offs.

“Safety comes first,” though, she said. “... Next year, we’ll see what happens.”

As the holiday approaches, the Christmas Stocking leaders’ hope is that those who are able will consider aiding the group’s efforts, Pfarr said.

“It’s been a couple of tough years now,” but donations of any amount help, Pfarr added.

Those who want to donate online can visit the Monroe Christmas Stocking Fund Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/MonroeChristmasStocking/ and follow the link, at https://cfsw.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create?funit_id=1510, to contribute.