That Good Old Operation Holiday

Photo by Evan Brandt

Smale's Printery printed these up for us.

It's been a rough year.

So it's not always easy to get into the holiday spirit.

But one thing never fails, even if decorating the tree, putting out the nutcrackers, going on the Holiday House Tour, or going to the school holiday concert, does.

Mercury Photographer Kevin Hoffman

looks cheered up too.

Operation Holiday never fails to cheer me up.

For those of you who don't know, and it should be just a few of you, Operation Holiday is The Mercury's annual drive to raise money to provide gifts and food to needy families during the holidays.

Social service agencies, school districts, hospitals, food pantries provide a list of names of people they know are struggling and we call them up and interview them.

We write their stories and this, apparently, inspires a community that arguably does not have much to share, to give generously.

All kinds of folks work behind the scenes to make it happen including a lady named, I am not kidding you, Sue Klaus.

So yes, as editor Nancy March put it in her talk the food pack-up volunteers Thursday, "it is not lost on us that the person who keeps track of the list is a person whose e-mail is sklaus..."

Then comes the big day, when all the food provided by Weiss Markets is packed into two sets of boxes for delivery to the referring agencies, who in turn pass it on -- along with $75 gift certificates for each child -- to this year's families.

This year, that day was Thursday.

Here is some video:

Pottstown High School student government, after the work is done.

My son and I have been volunteering with the food pack-up since he was old enough to put  a ham in a box and now he is one of the teenagers who come each year from Pottstown High School student government to help out.

(Of course now that he's a teenager, I mostly have to pretend I don't know him, but that's just par for the course. He's still here doing it and that's what counts.)

This year we also got help from students from Pottsgrove High School, Pope John Paul II and St. Joe's.

This is not to mention all The Mercury employees and their families who unfailingly lend a hand.

So it worked.

Happy Holidays everyone.