Operation Christmas CHEER for seniors
Georgetown, Del. – Sussex County nonprofit, CHEER, which helps seniors with assisted living is working to deliver goods, gifts and meals to seniors for their donation delivery drive, Operation Christmas CHEER on Thursday morning.
“We have about 320 seniors signed up right now who are going to be essentially home alone on Christmas and they’re not really going to have a lot of company,” Tom Reardon, chief operating officer of CHEER said.
The “operation” involves about 80 volunteers. Michelle Gibbs, lead outreach worker in Georgetown, Del., said “Operation Christmas Cheer” aims to help seniors who cannot leave their homes or are by themselves with no one to help them celebrate Christmas. She said volunteers work to bring them Christmas gifts, hot plates and canned food, blankets and even dog and cat food if they have pets.
“Oh, my God, it’s wonderful,” she said.
In addition to hot meals, blankets, self care products and Christmas gifts, seniors will also be receiving Christmas cards.
“These cards were done by students at Georgetown Elementary School, and thank you to Mrs. Fox. She’s the art teacher there,” Megan Jordan, chair nutrition administrative assistant, said.
Reardon says it’s special to see people coming together to spend their Christmas morning delivering to people in need.
“And I do it too! I love doing it. I take my whole family and we go out and we deliver these, gifts to people in the community, and they just love having ya,” he said.
Gibbs said the deliveries help bring a “smile to their face” once they open the door and see the volunteers with bags full of goodies and food.
“They know they’re not alone,” she said.
Reardon says it’s all thanks to the community.
“It’s all thanks to the generosity of the people in Sussex County that we have so many gifts to give,” he said. “I mean, as you look around this room, you see there’s just packages everywhere. And I think it’s just neat that they get that hot meal, that hot Christmas meal that, everyone else gets to have, and we don’t even think about it.”
For those who wish to donate wrapped gifts, they can take them to any of the CHEER locations, the County Bank in Milton and Long Neck, M&T Bank on Route 113 in Georgetown or Meineke CarCare in Lewes.
