Stuffing holidays with caring
Published: December 7, 2005
Celebrating the holidays at the Los Angeles Childrens Hospital requires a few key ingredients — some felt, a little thread and about 60 industrious elementary school students.
For the past week, students from Roosevelt Elementary School have spent their mornings and afternoons with a needle and thread, sewing and stuffing Christmas stockings to donate to terminally ill children at the hospital.
“Every year I ask them if they want to do this, and every year they’re so excited to start again,” said Donna Gibbons, who runs the after-school program for Roosevelt students.
The students sewed felt reindeer, Christmas trees, snowmen and Santa Claus onto the stockings and made an additional 50 Chanukah bags to fill with trinkets.
“We give them little hair ties with beads that we make; we give them little erasers and finger puppets,” said 9-year-old Dani De Grandis, who had already churned out four stockings.
The toys that go inside the stockings, Gibbons explained, are primarily donated by the parents, although local businesses — like the Bob Hope Airport — also provide donations.
The annual sewing of the stockings, said Gibbons, is in the spirit of the after-school program as a whole. The program, which is administered by the district, is funded by the parents involved. Students spend their mornings and afternoons in a small building, dubbed “the log cabin,” behind Roosevelt Elementary. They play, do crafts, and get help with their homework until school starts or their parents come to pick them up.
“I usually play outside in the sand area and dance,” Dani said.
Michelle Fickle and her children have been participating in the after-school program for more than eight years and the stocking sewing is her favorite activity, she said.
“I’d rather spend my Christmas shopping doing this,” she said. “They need it so much more.”
The students, Fickle added, are all aware of who will be getting the stockings. Gibbons even brings a camera to the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital and records the handing-out of the stockings for the Roosevelt students to see.
“The kids are really good about it,” Fickle said. “They’ll pick up the stuffed animals and hold them to their cheeks to test them out. They’ll say, ‘This one will be good; they’ll like this one.’”
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