Four years ago I created the Senior Santa Project. I was wanting to do something in my community that focused on a group often forgotten about. I started out with only 25 seniors the first year and only those in my neighborhood. Now 4 years later with friends we are providing over 110 seniors with a gift bag and 10 adopted families with full Christmas dinners and gifts for the family. We also managed gifts for over 17 children. This project has grown to cover our entire county and we expect to continue growing. This is a zero dollar budget project meaning it is funded strictly by donations. Over the last 4 years as word of mouth spreads more donations are received and more seniors are reached.
This year we joined forces with our community center and held a Christmas party for several seniors and delivered their gifts there. For those who couldn’t go to the party we will be hand delivering their gifts this week. I dress up as the Grinch, my wife as a Christmas moose, and a friend of mine as Santa and have fun bringing smiles.
Below are pictures of the Senior Christmas party…
The pictures below are of the Christmas gifts and dinner sets being assembled. Each of the 10 families get a cook yourself family meal, presents for everyone, a Christmas tree with decorations, and a Christmas stocking filled with goodies and toys. Dinner kits include ingredients to make a green bean casserole, stuffing, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, pie, mac & cheese, 10lb ham, ginger bread house kit, and more.
The senior gift bags are filled with consumable items that can be made in a coffee mug and more. A variety of coffees, teas, ciders, mug cakes, muffins, some candy, Christmas card, tree decoration, bottle of sparkling apple cider, hot cocoa, candy spoons, and of course a Christmas mug.
The local Girl Scouts group made the cards and ornaments. The Koponen family helped with the mugs. Myself (Ryan Lipinski) and two of my friends provided a combined total of $2,500 to purchase everything this year.
FixedByDoc 