The La Mesa Chamber thanks the public, members, and friends for making this year’s annual senior project an overwhelming success. People drove from throughout the region to donate items for our gift baskets and bags that were delivered on December 9th to the 16 La Mesa homebound seniors. Each year we work with the La Mesa Police Department and the Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol to distribute our gifts. This year they had 80 bags, boxes and filled stockings to deliver. The La Mesa Chamber allocates funds to assist these seniors and were joined by the following financial partners who donated cash and gift cards: Kyle Nyswonger of Carl Burger Dodge Chrysler Jeep RAM World, Darsi Bakker of PenChecks, Inc., Michelle Huey of Pete’s Place, Lily Pigg of Lily’s Manufactured Homes, Tracey Ferguson, Gloria Shepard, Sandy Small, Gloria Carrillo and Bruce and Kimberly McIntyre. In addition to these cash donations and gift cards, this year we collected canned food, calendars, toiletries, notepads, soaps, shampoos, stationery, clothing, socks tissues, blankets, and other articles for a Grand Total of 4,323 items. This was an increase from last year’s donations of 962 items.
The Chamber receives all the items and wraps them in gift baskets and bags that are delivered to each senior. We thank EDCO, North Island Credit Union and Sycuan Casino for donating the bags that make this distribution possible. In addition to these needed items, we were honored to receive beautiful handmade “stuffed” Christmas stockings from the Pioneers, a volunteer network of AT&T. These folks worked tirelessly throughout the year making those handmade Christmas stockings, then stuff them with items such as shampoo, conditioner, scarves, body lotion, socks, wafers, lip balm, and more. Adorable stuffed animals were attached to each stocking, as an added bonus! The Pioneers donate these stockings to various organizations during the holidays and we were pleased to receive them for our La Mesa seniors. We enlisted the help of Maggie Eggers, Sandy Eggleton, Dennis England, and Steve Browne to pack the items in their vehicles and deliver them to the Police Department.
The generosity of the public and our members in supporting this project, is a testament to the love that we all have for our senior population. Our seniors do not ask for much and accept all that they are given with a grateful heart. We thank everyone who participated in this year’s Senior Holiday Project.