Gift cards given to children in need
Published 12:05 am Wednesday, December 18, 2019
- Representatives from G. Smith Motorsports, The Rose Casino and the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office joined Santa Claus to give away Walmart gift cards to children in need of Christmas presents. The distributions were held back-to-back in St. James, St. John and St. Charles parishes to reach 124 children.
LAPLACE — The holiday season just got a little brighter for more than 100 children in need across the Tri-Parish area. Families nominated to receive a little extra Christmas cheer were given Walmart gift cards and an opportunity to pick out their very own presents, whether it is a brand new toy or a warm and cozy outfit.
Melissa Breaux of The Rose Casino, G.Smith Motorsports, and the Sheriff’s Office in St. John the Baptist, St. James and St. Charles parishes joined forces to make the 14th annual Christmas giveaway possible for 124 children this year.
The giveaway items change year by year, according to Breaux. Volunteers sometimes hand pick toys for each child. On other occasions, children have received bicycles. This year, organizers wanted to give the kids a chance to select their own gifts.
Each child also took a photo with Santa Claus and received a goodie bag filled with snacks, activity pads, cups, stickers, colors, stamps and other trinkets.
“We get with the Sheriff’s Office in each parish and ask them to submit names of recipients that they feel would be some good candidates for some Christmas cheer,” Breaux said. “We allow the different parishes to choose the recipients because they know their people. The Smith brothers, Glen and Gary Smith, actually provide all of the gifts for the kids in the three parishes.”
Gary Smith said the annual giveaway is an important Christmas tradition because the children of today are the leaders of tomorrow.
“We’ve been very fortunate in our business, professional and personal lives to achieve certain things,” Smith said. “People helped us along the way. We feel like it’s important to help people continue to develop.”
Some of the families do not have reliable transportation and could not meet up at the designated distribution zones in St. John, St. James and St. Charles parishes, according to Smith. In those cases, G.Smith team members or representatives from the Sheriff’s Office delivered the gift cards to the families.
Deputy Darlene Cooper said it was important to her for the St. John Sheriff’s Office to be involved. Starting in early November, she reached out to all of the schools in St. John Parish to find out which children were most in need of a happy holiday.
“The counselors gave me a list of names of the kids who they thought were in need of a gift for Christmas,” Cooper said. “It means a whole lot to be a part of such a great organization and to give to families that are in need during Christmastime.”
