Help Spread Holiday Cheer With Gift Donations

(KNSI) – Santa Claus is coming to town soon. He will need some help and you might be just the right person.

Registration is open for Avivo’s Adopt-A-Family holiday gift program. The organization is looking for donors who would be expected to spend between $100 and $125 per person to deliver some Christmas cheer for families whose budgets are stretched thin.

Director of Volunteer Services Brittany Bigger says your gifts will stay local. “People who sign up through our Waite Park location, it’s going to go to a family in Stearns or Benton County. Anyone from the community who signs up, their gifts will stay in the community, and they can also drop off at that Waite Park location. We’re not asking them to come to the cities.”

Biggers says the program was started about ten years ago and spread to Waite Park in 2022. She expects about 100 families to need help, with an average size of four people.

Bigger says Avivo helps you select the perfect present. “They [the donors] know exactly what they’re purchasing for. We ask that they wrap the gifts and that they label the gifts with the family’s number. It’s an anonymous way of making sure the gifts get to the family without sharing their personal contact information or their personal identification information.”

Avivo takes great pains to reduce the stigma for any families participating. Staff will distribute the gifts in plenty of time for the holidays.

More information on registering is here.

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