Aid for Friends gets big help from community to make Christmas special
POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - Not everyone gets to spend Christmas at home surrounded by family and food.
Aid for Friends houses many people during the holiday who don't have the resources to make Christmas a warm and special day.
"Our community came together this year like you wouldn't believe," said BJ Stensland, the executive director of Aid for Friends.
Acorn Fund Pocatello Inc. sponsored the Sub for Santa program to ensure that everyone staying at the shelter had gifts on Christmas.
The Acorn Fund helped create wish lists for each individual that included clothing sizes, practical items and a special gift. Then donors were able to shop for what people had asked for.
An anonymous donor bought a Christmas Eve dinner at Olivers Restaurant for everyone.
Members of the Connections Credit Union Olympus branch held a food drive for Christmas dinner.
Jamie Reynolds of the Olympus branch said the credit union does holiday drives for the community every year. Employees of the branch chose to focus their efforts on Aid for Friends.
"We all talked about how Christmas can be hard for some people," Reynolds said. "We all came up with Aid for Friends because it might help multiple people rather than just one family."
This is the first year Aid for Friends will be able to provide a Christmas dinner for the people and families at the shelter.
“They’ve had Thanksgiving and everything but to find someone to donate food and find someone to cook it was really difficult," said McKenna Ritcheson, a Connections employee who helped facilitate the food drive.
"We got a volunteer group from the Presbyterian church to fix that dinner,” Stensland said.
The Portneuf Valley Interfaith Fellowship and Boy Scout troops held separate blanket and clothing drives for Aid for Friends.
"We have received a lot of great things to help (make) the season a little bit easier on those who are staying at the shelter," Stensland said.
Stensland said this kind of help from the community goes a long way.
"We can barely keep things going with meals every night and doing the things that we need to do to keep them safe. So for the community to give of themselves and donate to Aid for Friends means everything, especially at this holiday season," Stensland said.
"I just want to thank the community so much for caring about Aid for Friends, the work we do and the people we're helping because they're going to be productive members of our community because they got a chance," Stensland said.
