CULLMAN, Ala. – Kids Loving Kids held three giveaways over the weekend at Meek Baptist Church in Arley, Spirit Life Church in Cullman and Worship Life Church in Jasper. The organization received donations from several new donors this year. The group received a grant from Walker Area Community Foundation to buy hygiene products like deodorant, body wash and toothpaste. Founder Pam Dodd said that the Jasper church had about 60 volunteers for the giveaway who directed traffic, passed out food and toys and formed prayer teams. Raising Arrows and Worship Life Church fed hot meals to all families who came to the giveaway.
Dodd said she had about 130 volunteers in all at the three locations, and the number of volunteers freed her up to visit almost every car. When Pam visited the cars, she would introduce herself, tell them Merry Christmas and hand out cards with scriptures and her phone number. She invited anyone who needed anything to call her personally.
Central States of Jasper donated the shelving in the Kids Loving Kids Curry warehouse. Gateway Foods donated the location as well as pays the electric and water bills for the building. Golden Flake donated thousands of bags of chips to the events. Alisha Beard, the Executive Director of Kids Loving Kids, is also a hospice nurse at Cullman Regional and she and her husband Zach Beard are also the youth pastors at Spirit Life Church. Along with Jason and Amy Canter and some teenage volunteers, the Beards packed all boxes of donations. The organization allows for preregistration for their giveaway events and the boxes are prepared and numbered for specific families.
Pam participated in the giveaway Saturday morning during severe storms. She said, “I went to hundreds of cars in the rain, and I didn’t have an umbrella for a long time, and somebody that had already gone through to pick up Christmas for their children, they came back through the line and brought me an umbrella.”
Premier Bank in West Point donated hundreds of toys and sweaters. Al Wayne Grissom of Cullman donated hundreds of hand-knitted toboggans. Dodd also noted, “The people who gave out to Kids Loving Kids were some of the people that received from Kids Loving Kids the year before.”
For anyone who would like to help Kids Loving Kids, Dodd recommends volunteering next year at Spirit Life Church and donating clothes for Kids Loving Kids’ upcoming “Clothes Closet” which will be open in Curry. Dodd said, “If you are cleaning out your kids toy box now, and you have slightly used toys, we need them and just drop them off at Spirit Life Church on St. Joseph Drive.”
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