About the Christmas Stocking Fund
The Christmas Stocking Fund is an annual effort of the Monroe Woman's Club. The club collects money and other donations, and distributes toys and vouchers for shoes and boots to children in need in the Monroe school district. Families receive food boxes, complete with ingredients to prepare a holiday meal, delivered before Christmas. Cheer boxes are also delivered to the elderly.
Every year, the Christmas Stocking benefits hundreds of families. Names of families in need are offered confidentially by school officials, counselors and area churches. The effort requires a multitude of volunteers who shop for families, bake cookies and pack and deliver food boxes.
To donate to the Christmas Stocking Fund, send contributions to 901 16th Ave., Monroe, WI, 53566. All contributions are used locally to fund the program.
Gloria Scherer of Scherer Moving and Storage began working with the organization more than 10 years ago alongside her husband Louis.
"We love helping people," Scherer said. "It's rewarding to help somebody in need."
Scherer said she helps shop for kids' toys and helps organizes boxes items for Christmas Stocking. Louis helps with delivery.
When they first began helping, Scherer said she noticed a glaring problem: There were no tables. Everything the group had gathered was being set on the floor, making volunteers work harder while organizing all of the toys. So the Scherers brought in their own tables to help keep items off the ground and make it easier to put boxes together neatly.
The location for all of this organization is the Behring Senior Center in Monroe. Coordinator Tammy Derrickson has seen Christmas Stocking volunteers come and go from the second-floor meeting room since before she began at the center 20 years ago. She said some of the seniors' activities have to be relocated while the Stocking Fund workers set up temporary shop there, but it is hardly an inconvenience.
"It's a community support program," Derrickson said. "It's important for the kids in the community."
Scherer also focuses on children, and notes how important the happiness of young ones throughout Monroe can be around the holidays. She said that delivering the gifts to their recipients is a heartening experience.
"There are a lot of needy kids around here," Scherer said. "They don't look it, but there is a need. We just wanted to help."
And in helping some children in need, Scherer has found she can enhance the lives of others around her. Specifically, Scherer mentioned her grandchildren, who she encourages to volunteer. Even young people next door are pushed to provide public service to people within their community.
"Volunteering is a good thing," Scherer said. "You need to do it yourself, not depend on someone else."
In addition to providing a toy, the Christmas Stocking Fund also provides vouchers for warm shoes or boots to children in need in the Monroe school district. Volunteers also create food boxes for families, complete with fixings to prepare a holiday meal.
Brennan's Market manager Cheryl Tertin said the company has supplied food for these boxes for a number of years. Oranges and apples are provided for the family dinner boxes while clementines or mandarin oranges are placed in the Cheer Box, along with other goodies, for senior citizens. The market delivers all of the donated food to Dearth Motors, where individuals pack boxes, an activity Tertin decided to take part in after seeing the process through her job.
"It made me feel like I was helping out in the holidays," Tertin said. "The community is really, really supportive of the Christmas Stocking program too, and that's really good."
Tertin added that most, if not all, of Brennan's employees donate individually to the program, making them part of that support system.