NAS Lemoore Seabees help with gifts.
NAS Lemoore Seabees help with gifts.

Lemoore’s Police Department and Lemoore Christian Aid came together Friday night in an effort to provide gift bags and food for a number of Lemoore families, an event that made the Christmas season that much more meaningful for a number of Lemoore families and their children. Volunteers from a number of local agencies, service clubs and others were on hand to help distribute the goods as Christmas nears.

Also on hand were Santa Claus and his wife to bring good cheer to eager youngsters.

Two-year-old Naomi Garcia and family.
Two-year-old Naomi Garcia and family.

This is the third year in a row that Lemoore Christian Aid and the local police department have come together to help with holiday gifts and dinner. All told, according to Interim Chief of Police Darrell Smith, at least 48 families and 200 children benefitted from the largess Friday night.

“You know in these times for the less fortunate, Christmas time it’s hard time and with the difficult economy we want to provide an opportunity to make sure that people have the simple essentials such as food, so we are providing food baskets and we’re going to be giving away gifts to 200 kids, and we’ll feed 48 needy families,” said Smith.

Lemoore Chistian Aid Director John Benton and Brian Monical help pack chickens.
Lemoore Chistian Aid Director John Benton and Brian Monical help pack chickens.

Smith said that volunteers came from a wide variety of places, including a detachment of Seabees from Naval Air Station Lemoore, who could be seen helping residents with bags and boxes of food and gifts. Also on hand were volunteers from Lemoore Christian Aid as well as service clubs like the Lemoore Rotary. Off duty police officers helped as did the department’s Volunteers in Policing (VIPs) and many others.

Lemoore Christian Aid donated the food baskets, which included hundreds of chickens. Lemoore Christian Aid Director John Benton was also on hand helping to pack the chickens into food baskets.

“This is our third year working together with the police department,” said Benton. “Hats off to the police department for doing this, and it’s our privilege to be a part of it. And it actually goes full circle, because if it wasn’t for the community giving to us we couldn’t help partner with them to reach back out to the community.”