With the help of local elves, Santa Claus was able to come down an extra chimney or two this Christmas to help some of the needy families.

Tuesday, December 28, 1999

With the help of local elves, Santa Claus was able to come down an extra chimney or two this Christmas to help some of the needy families.

Representatives of local charitable organizations say they had a productive holiday season this year thanks to donations from many community members.

"We were able to give out Christmas food to over 1,000 families over the month of December," said James Middleton, director of the Central Christian Church Food Pantry. "It was great. We were able to help out a lot of folks. We had a lot of referrals of people who were in need and we were able to help them out."

Middleton said the pantry has been helping people for more than 15 years. That assistance for needy families would not be possible without the generosity of the community.

"We get food donations and sometimes we get cash donations and that allows us to buy specific things for those in need," he said.

Even though Christmas has come and gone, the needs of local charities continue Middleton said.

"Things do not slow down just because the holidays are over," Middleton said. "We have our normal deliveries and we are, of course, involved in emergency relief as well. It is very important that we don’t get behind. People are as hungry the day after Christmas as they are any other time."

Alice Moore, co-director of the Chesapeake Community Outreach Food Pantry said the mission also saw an increase in donations this holiday season, allowing more needy families to get food for their holiday dinners and the week after Christmas.

"It went well this year," she said. "We sent out over 400 food baskets, which is how many we planned to do."

Ms. Moore said the Chesapeake mission receives donations like any other, but, at this time of year, a little extra effort is required.

"Each church in our area takes a project. Like one church will collect cake mix, while another will collect something else," she said. "That is the way we put our food baskets together. Our community really supports the food pantry. We get good support from our churches and from the public as well."

Ms. Moore said that a late donation last week allowed the mission to restock, but things are still a little low.

"We need to keep going (especially) in January," she said. "It is still busy and we need lots of donations."

At Ironton’s City Mission, Jim Lee Cremeans is still putting away donations even though the mission’s holiday food distribution is over. There are still mouths to feed.

"Even though Thanksgiving and Christmas are our heaviest times of year,we have hungry people here every day," Cremeans said. "We are busy yearround with dealing with clothing, food, furniture and all sorts of needs."

Cremeans said the community’s generosity is what keeps the mission going and added that those donations allowed the mission to feed more than 600 families this holiday season.