How to contribute to 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 clothes, toys and vouchers for shoes and boots to children in need in the Monroe school district. Families also 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, Wis., 53566. All contributions are used locally to fund the program. A pre-addressed envelope is also included inside today's edition of the Times.
MONROE - When Christmas is near and dear to the hearts of children, it's poignant that among those who rise up to help make the season more memorable are the youth of the community.
This year, as in so many years past, Monroe youths are pitching in to make the Monroe Women's Club Christmas Stocking a success. The Christmas Stocking project provides a toy, as well as winter coats and vouchers for shoes and boots, for children in need in the Monroe school district. The all-volunteer project also provides food boxes with fixings for a holiday dinner for families and cheer boxes for senior citizens.
For the 24th year in a row, the Adaptive Home Economics class at Monroe High School is making homemade cookies to place in the food boxes delivered to families. The students are making and baking more than 120 cookies a week for three weeks.
Molasses, snickerdoodles, chocolate mint and sugar cookies, to name a few, will be packaged in mixed varieties by the students of Monroe Middle School.
While the fun of making cookies is a learning experience, the purpose of donating their products to needy children is not lost on the young adults.
"It makes you feel great," said Anita Bonjour, 19, "because we know they don't have any."
Amanda Burgess, 16, said the baking the cookies makes her feel "happy" knowing other children will be receiving the same joys of Christmas treats that she has known growing up.
In the high school textile classes, students took advantage of sewing kits to make more than 18 different stuffed and furry animals, including a teddy bear, piglets, a kangaroo and joey, a bulldog, a dragon, a shark and a parrot.
"We love little kids," said Halie Lyons, a freshman who knows what a handmade stuffed animal can mean to a child - she received one herself when she was 8 years old.
Even at that young age, "I knew how much time it took to make it," she said.
Kailey Wyman said not only does it feel good to give a stuffed animals to a child who may not have one, but the handmade ones are also better than the massed produced.
"This gets done better. When you go through (the sewing steps), if you mess up, you have to go back and fix it," she said, smiling.
Students who had finished their own class projects and needed more to do were asked to complete a kit, knowing that the finished project would be going to a child in need, according to their instructor Melody Loeffelholtz.
But with 890 children among the 360 Christmas Stocking families this year, not all toys can be handmade. That's where youth shoppers come in.
The more than a dozen members of St. John's United Church of Christ youth fellowship are among the 290 volunteer shoppers this year, who spend hours picking out toys for individual boys and girls, fitted to their ages and interests.
Gary Neuenswander, the church's Sunday School director, said the members shopped together, each responsible for at least one child, as a Wednesday night group outing.
"The kids have a great time doing it, and the shopping carts are plumb full," he said.
The number of shoppers this year "is the most we've ever had," said Sue Barrett, publicity coordinator for the Monroe Women's Club.
The number of needy families is also up this year, Barrett said, from 330 last year to 360 this year.
"That's why the envelope drive is so important," Barrett said. A pre-addressed envelope for the Christmas Stocking fund is included inside today's edition for those who wish to send a monetary donation to support the project.
Community businesses, Anchor Bank, Culver's, Sugar River Bank, First National Bank and Trust, Shopko, Wisconsin Bank and Trust, and Monroe Chamber of Commerce, also add to the toy drive by accepting new or like-new toy donations at their locations. Volunteers "shop" from these toy donations for their assigned children to help stretch monetary donations as far as possible.
Girl Scouts decorate the food boxes wrapped in white paper, and then National Honor Society students and student athletes are among those who arrive on the scene at Dearth's emptied auto showroom to pack the boxes and help deliver hundreds of boxes of food, Barrett said.
Starting as early as 6 a.m. Dec. 21, volunteers, young and old, most working in pairs, deliver all the food boxes by 9 a.m.
"It is amazing to watch. In just that short amount of time, they're all gone," Barrett said.
This year, as in so many years past, Monroe youths are pitching in to make the Monroe Women's Club Christmas Stocking a success. The Christmas Stocking project provides a toy, as well as winter coats and vouchers for shoes and boots, for children in need in the Monroe school district. The all-volunteer project also provides food boxes with fixings for a holiday dinner for families and cheer boxes for senior citizens.
For the 24th year in a row, the Adaptive Home Economics class at Monroe High School is making homemade cookies to place in the food boxes delivered to families. The students are making and baking more than 120 cookies a week for three weeks.
Molasses, snickerdoodles, chocolate mint and sugar cookies, to name a few, will be packaged in mixed varieties by the students of Monroe Middle School.
While the fun of making cookies is a learning experience, the purpose of donating their products to needy children is not lost on the young adults.
"It makes you feel great," said Anita Bonjour, 19, "because we know they don't have any."
Amanda Burgess, 16, said the baking the cookies makes her feel "happy" knowing other children will be receiving the same joys of Christmas treats that she has known growing up.
In the high school textile classes, students took advantage of sewing kits to make more than 18 different stuffed and furry animals, including a teddy bear, piglets, a kangaroo and joey, a bulldog, a dragon, a shark and a parrot.
"We love little kids," said Halie Lyons, a freshman who knows what a handmade stuffed animal can mean to a child - she received one herself when she was 8 years old.
Even at that young age, "I knew how much time it took to make it," she said.
Kailey Wyman said not only does it feel good to give a stuffed animals to a child who may not have one, but the handmade ones are also better than the massed produced.
"This gets done better. When you go through (the sewing steps), if you mess up, you have to go back and fix it," she said, smiling.
Students who had finished their own class projects and needed more to do were asked to complete a kit, knowing that the finished project would be going to a child in need, according to their instructor Melody Loeffelholtz.
But with 890 children among the 360 Christmas Stocking families this year, not all toys can be handmade. That's where youth shoppers come in.
The more than a dozen members of St. John's United Church of Christ youth fellowship are among the 290 volunteer shoppers this year, who spend hours picking out toys for individual boys and girls, fitted to their ages and interests.
Gary Neuenswander, the church's Sunday School director, said the members shopped together, each responsible for at least one child, as a Wednesday night group outing.
"The kids have a great time doing it, and the shopping carts are plumb full," he said.
The number of shoppers this year "is the most we've ever had," said Sue Barrett, publicity coordinator for the Monroe Women's Club.
The number of needy families is also up this year, Barrett said, from 330 last year to 360 this year.
"That's why the envelope drive is so important," Barrett said. A pre-addressed envelope for the Christmas Stocking fund is included inside today's edition for those who wish to send a monetary donation to support the project.
Community businesses, Anchor Bank, Culver's, Sugar River Bank, First National Bank and Trust, Shopko, Wisconsin Bank and Trust, and Monroe Chamber of Commerce, also add to the toy drive by accepting new or like-new toy donations at their locations. Volunteers "shop" from these toy donations for their assigned children to help stretch monetary donations as far as possible.
Girl Scouts decorate the food boxes wrapped in white paper, and then National Honor Society students and student athletes are among those who arrive on the scene at Dearth's emptied auto showroom to pack the boxes and help deliver hundreds of boxes of food, Barrett said.
Starting as early as 6 a.m. Dec. 21, volunteers, young and old, most working in pairs, deliver all the food boxes by 9 a.m.
"It is amazing to watch. In just that short amount of time, they're all gone," Barrett said.