Senior Holiday Project
Make the Holiday Brighter for Homebound La Mesa SeniorsThe Chamber is now beginning to gather items for our 16 homebound seniors. It is the goal of the Chamber to collect, purchase and assemble items and place them in large gift baskets and gift bags. All these gift bags are delivered to the selected seniors by the La Mesa Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol. Due to delivery schedule, the deadline to receive the gifts for our seniors is Friday, December 1st. This will allow time to wrap all the items, prepare all the gift basket and purchase the items needed. The Chamber plans to make this holiday special for these wonderful members of our community!
You may deliver your items to:
The La Mesa Chamber office: 8080 La Mesa Blvd., Suite 214 to Fran Smith, Monday – Friday 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Mary England is also available 7 days a week to meet donors and pick up those items directly from you. Contact Mary England at (619) 251-7730 and she can arrange to meet you to pick up your items.
Suggested items to purchase or donate:
Canned soups, canned vegetables, canned fruits, crackers, pasta, marinara, macaroni & cheese, instant cereals, bars of soap, tubes of tooth paste, tissues, bottles of hand soaps, hand sanitizer, socks, pens and pads of paper. Gift cards in any denomination from the following locations: Walmart, Target, or any grocery store. Please double check expiration dates!
If you have another item you believe will put a smile on their faces, by all means drop them off! We want to make this a memorable holiday for our home bound seniors again this year.
La Mesa Chamber Annual Senior Holiday Project “Puts a Little Love” in Many Hearts!
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.