INL workers sponsor families for Christmas

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho employees and contractors are donated time, money, food and gifts Saturday. Employees sponsored 64 families in Eastern Idhao, including more 215 children from Arco, Mackay, Howe, Roberts, Pocatello, Rigby, Ririe, Menan, Idaho Falls, Blackfoot and Shelley.

“We’ve got families this year with little babies that are sleeping on the floor because they don’t have beds to lay in. We’ve got families this year who are living in camp trailers because they lost a rental home and lost everything in their rental home,” said co-coordinator Penny Howe. “It is not just one group at the INL, it is everybody. NRF, CWI, BEA, the United Steelworkers, everybody works together as a group to there’s no division there.”

Battelle Energy Alliance and the Idaho Clean Up Project donated $6,000 in corporate funds to purchase food boxes for each family. The United Steelworkers Union and its members donated a turkey for each family and use of the union hall for packing food boxes.