By K.D. Norris
ken@wktv.org
After more than a century of providing holiday season gift bundles to thousands of western Michigan kids, the Santa Claus Girls will be still this holiday season as the double hit of both COVID-10 and the need for a new home facility has forced the program into hiatus for 2020.
The Santa Claus Girls’s history in Kent County dates from 1909 and from their most recent home in Kentwood at the Knoll Inc. building on 36th Avenue, the all-volunteer group delivered more than 13,500 gift packages in 2018 and topped that number last year.
“Santa Claus Girls has taken a pause for the 2020 season,” Maggie Moerdyke, Interim President of Santa Claus Girls, said to WKTV. “Knoll was sold and the charity inventory is packed in 4 trailers awaiting a new home. It was a tough decision for the board to pass for the holiday season yet the pandemic had made it impossible to carry forward for 2020.”
Usually, the Santa Claus Girls packages and delivers gift bags through which in-need kids get a new toy and candy but also get hand-made, knitted winter hats and mittens. Depending on the age of the kids, families can also receive infant receiving blankets, crocheted or knitted or out of flannel, infant toys, and age-appropriate 1-year-old and 2-year-old stuffed animals.
To accomplish such an effort, there is a small army providing gift wrapping and package-assembly, as well volunteers to join another small army of drivers to deliver the packages in mid-December.
But the army will be at home this season.
“The volunteers, the space, the production, are all side by side and the ability to maintain 6 foot of space between was not an option,” Moerdyke said. “The 350 drivers were also on the mind of the board and to send them into the neighborhoods to deliver was not an option either with COVID spreading so rapidly. Safety and health was foremost on the mind of each of us through the cancellation process.”
She said the non-profit’s governing board had to make the decision that “with heavy heart (we) cannot reach the 13,000 children that are serviced during the giving season. The goal is to return in 2021, bigger and better.”
The board is also working a new model for the non-profit but, she said, they “truly need a workshop to make it happen.”
A new home needed for program
Knoll Inc. housed Santa Claus Girls for six years, including all utilities and the company’s maintenance staff.
Knoll had “a heart of gold to support the families in the community, the volunteers, and the charity,” she said. “Just maybe (we) will be fortunate to find another similar blessing.”
According to Moerdyke, Santa Claus Girls needs a facility between 25,000-75,000 square feet. The ideal, she said, would be 75,000 square feet which comes into use during the six weeks of assembling and delivery. The lower square footage figure would be for storage during the other 10 months of the year.
Moerdyke also said “the master plan is to have a facility to accommodate Santa Claus Girls, Y-Service Club (White Elephant Sale) and Toys For Tots. All three charities have worked together for several years yet in separate facilities and moved from one place to another as needed incorporating the use of trailers for storage whenever necessary.”
As with every year, the Santa Claus Girls are also seeking community support both in volunteerism and financial donations.
For more information visit santaclausgirls.org or visit their Facebook page.
