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 to the 21 La Mesa homebound seniors this year. Each year we work with the La Mesa Police Department Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol to distribute our gifts. This year due to the pandemic, the RSVP’s have not been able to work, so we enlisted the help of others from the Police Department to deliver our items.
Each year the La Mesa Chamber allocates funds to assist these seniors and were joined by the following financial partners who donated cash and gift cards: AMR, Kyle Nyswonger of Carl Burger Dodge Chrysler Jeep RAM World, Darsi Bakker of PenChecks, Inc. and Michelle Huey of Pete’s Place. In addition to these cash donations and gift cards, we collected canned food, calendars, toiletries, note pads, soaps, shampoos, stationary, clothing, socks tissues, blankets and other articles for a Grand Total of 3,298 items. The Chamber receives all of the items and wraps them in gift baskets and bags that are delivered to each senior. We thank EDCO and Sycuan for donating the bags that make this distribution possible. In addition to these needed items, we were honored to receive beautiful handmade Christmas stockings from the Pioneers, a volunteer network of AT&T. These folks worked tirelessly throughout the year making those handmade Christmas stockings, then stuffed them with lots of items such as masks, shampoos, gloves, socks, wafers, lip balms, 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 Steve Browne, Maggie Eggers, Dennis England, and Al Russell to pack the items in their vehicles and help 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 project.
Photos courtesy of Sandra Small/ Photographer