To the editor:
Once again, our Wintersville Good Neighbors Christmas program was a great success, due to all of the help we have from the local churches, schools, businesses, civic clubs, social clubs and many private citizens who volunteer to help.
In 1959, Ruth Cunningham organized a group of teachers at Wintersville Elementary School to help five little girls who were in need of clothing. In 2022, our organization was able to help 65 families with 151 children have a very merry Christmas with food, gifts and store cards.
Linda and I send special thanks to Wintersville United Methodist Church, which, for the last 30 years, has allowed us to use its wonderful facility for collecting, sorting, packing and distributing the food and gifts to the many families.
As always, our forever faithful toy coordinator, Kitty Ferguson, spends weeks and countless hours, directing the organizing, sorting and wrapping of all of the toys and gifts for children.
A very special thanks to the students of Cross Creek Elementary School, who collected hundreds of canned good, brought them to the church, sorted them and placed them on the appropriate tables. We also were blessed with a large donation from the school's PTO.
A heart-felt thanks to Deborah Oberman, the area coordinator, and the Marine Corps Toys for Tots program, which always donates a large assortment of beautiful new toys. Thanks also to Don Roe and the Smithfield Food Pantry, and to Ken Cornish, who for the last 40 years has organized the delivery to the shut-ins and the elderly.
A great thank-you goes out to all of the young men who spent the day carrying and loading the many boxes into the cars of the families. Thanks to the group from the Word of Life Fellowship, who, along with other volunteers, came out on Friday night to pack all of the boxes.
Thanks to the businesses in Wintersville that allowed us to place out toy drop-off boxes in their stores -- Kroger, Big Lots and Dollar General -- and to members of the Wintersville Police Department, who brought in two large containers of toys that they had collected.
We would like to recognize those who gave large monetary donations: Wintersville United Methodist Church; Word of Life Fellowship; Starkdale Presbyterian Church; Secret Santa; Wintersville American Legion Post 557; GFWC Wintersville Woman's Club; Mary Kay Schuetz; Tom and Lori Galbreath; Dave and Carol Evans; and Dan and Laura Daily.
God bless.
Jerry Boyd
Wintersville