I can’t say enough about the incredible amount of outreach we experienced from the community during the recent holiday party and toy drive for Sibling House.

There were 227 kids and parents and 15 more volunteers and we had a blast! The “toy store” was full and the shoppers from each family had a great assortment to choose from. There will be a lot of smiles when those gifts are opened!

Many thanks to Rosa Parks Elementary, Positive Ally After School Academy, Sorrento’s Coffee, Ixtapa Mexican Restaurant, Redapt.com, Vendaria Media Inc., Julie Friedman and Windermere Foundation, Eastlake Electric, Jeff Newport, Deb & Kent Knaus, Barb Koefod, and the generous Redmond Ridge Community for the incredible toy drive they were involved in.

Many kudos to A.G. Bell Elementary School for the huge amount of food they collected in their food drive for Sibling House. Every item went home with many of the homes of our network. In case you weren’t aware, Lori Church-Pursley, the director of our new South King County branch of Sibling House, deserves all the credit for procuring the 130 colorful custom made pillow cases that were donated for distribution to the network. Those were so cool!

Thank you Tabatha Roach for donating 175 new books for the kids. All were snatched up! And of course, we could not have pulled off such a great party without the help of our volunteers: Henry and Naomi Lombard, Janet Schweizer, Mr. and Mrs. Toby Nixon, Cindy and Kevin McFeely, Marian and Jake Luther, Cody, Cheyenne, Brenden, Mindy, Jennifer (Gaskills) and Farah Mohammad. A huge thank you to Ben Von Ullrich and Dan Barnts for their parts as Santa and his helper. The kids loved you!

And the biggest hugs of all go to Esther Ames and Diane Curtis, Elves Extraordinaire, for the 173 personalized stockings that they assembled for Santa that were handed out to the kids! Thanks everyone! You are all stars in our sky!

Michael Gaskill, Sibling House