Christmas project already underway
PHIL CAMPBELL – With the scorching heat and blazing sunshine we’ve experienced already this summer, Christmas trees, snow and holiday cheer are probably the farthest things from the minds of Franklin County citizens.
But even though it’s the middle of July, one Franklin County woman is already concerned about what some of the children who were victims of the April 27 tornadoes will have when Christmas rolls around in five months.
Kristi Riddle, a resident of Phil Campbell, recently decided to spearhead a project she’s calling “Phil Campbell Christmas,” which is similar to the “Angel Tree” programs commonly held around the holidays. People will symbolically “adopt” child storm victims between the ages of newborn to 18, referred to as “Phil Campbell Angels,” and buy them presents for Christmas.
“I love doing Secret Santa projects and helping others, and this year I just felt the need to do it for the kids here in Phil Campbell,” Riddle said. “As a mother, I would hope that someone would help me with my children’s Christmas if it ever came to that. Every child deserves a wonderful Christmas.”
Riddle said she already has 13 kids who will need sponsors and she wants to have as many children as possible participate in her project so the parents of the children will have less of a burden on them to buy Christmas presents when they were struggling to buy basic amenities like food or other common household items.
“I think this will bring hope to the parents and let them know that there are people around that care,” Riddle said.
She added that to make this project work, she will need participation from the community that’s already shown lots of support for the people who lost everything to the deadly tornado.
“We need sponsors to buy gifts and we’ll need volunteers to help us wrap presents and do other things,” Riddle said. “We also need parents to contact us so we can get their children signed up. We want to have all our Angels in place by the middle of October.”
Even through Riddle said she doesn’t hope to have any problems with people trying to abuse the program or the generosity of the sponsors and volunteers, she has several safeguards in place to make sure that doesn’t happen.
“I have teachers at Phil Campbell that are going to help me and I will also contact someone who may know the children or the family,” Riddle said. “I want to have as many kids in need as possible, but I would rather help out the children that were storm victims in the sense that they had damage to or lost their home or they lost a family member. I will be depending on others to help me weed out the abusers of this program.”
Riddle has set up a Facebook page to coordinate all the people interested in participating in the program either as an Angel or as a sponsor or volunteer. The group can be found by visiting
www.facebook.com/groups/134232296657022?ap=1. For those not on Facebook, Riddle can be contacted through e-mail at kristiriddle22@hotmail.com. Complete specifications for participating in the program are listed on the Facebook page.
