SERVE gift-giving event helps families

Keli Tate, director of the Clothes Cupboard for SERVE, Inc., checks paperwork while volunteer Jim Peeby waits with carts. Pre-selected families picked up items to brighten their holidays Wednesday from a warehouse at Westminster College.
Keli Tate, director of the Clothes Cupboard for SERVE, Inc., checks paperwork while volunteer Jim Peeby waits with carts. Pre-selected families picked up items to brighten their holidays Wednesday from a warehouse at Westminster College.

A mix of about 175 families, 290 children and 95 seniors seniors will have a happy Christmas this year, thanks to SERVE, Inc.'s Adopt-A-Family drive.

The parking lot by the Mueller Student Center at Westminster College was filled with cars while families were treated to coffee and cocoa inside. A polished system of volunteers loaded the goods for each person or family in shopping carts, then delivered them to the waiting vehicles, volunteer Kiva Nice-Webb said.

Each family's gifts were collected in taped-off squares in the warehouse, with bins of food and bags of toiletry items lining one wall.

"I'm the potatoes, oranges and apples guy," said Rob Crouse, director of media and public relations for the college. "It's amazing, just amazing. When you see a kid getting a bicycle - the little kids' faces just light up. This is just an amazing day."

Amazing seemed to be the word of the day, he said.

"It would be impossible not to feel the Christmas spirit when you volunteer at something like this," Crouse added.

Volunteer Jim Peeby, of Fulton, pushed a purple girl's bicycle up to the exit door, then returned with an overflowing shopping cart full of other gifts. Retired from the Ameren nuclear power plant in Callaway County, he said he's volunteered at this event every holiday season for 20 years.

"The smiles on their faces," Peeby said while tearing up, "it's a wonderful time."

Another helper Wednesday, Christy Spears, said she also volunteers at the Clothes Cupboard, a SERVE thrift shop.

"This is the second time I've done this," she said. "I just like being around the spirit of this, and seeing people's faces when they get their stuff. It's just really nice."