Our 2012 Spirit of the Season program was a happy success due to the work of so many in our community.

Grateful hearts commend the community at large for their response of Wish Tree gifts fulfilling the dreams of many children. Special thanks to Phyllis Kelsey for co-chairing the Spirit of the Season again this year.

We are enormously indebted to Sandy and Sarah Tucker for their skill in organizing and disseminating the gifts and to Laura Pimentel for assisting on distribution day.

To Bonnie Thompson who heads up all the data processing and without which we couldn’t keep our collective act together.  

We sing praises for our volunteers Kathleen and Kelly Connors, and Mary Rose Pott who collected the Wish Tree gifts from the community locations: West America Bank, Tri-Counties Bank, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, HVL Realty and Mulligan’s.

We thank Linda DeDominic and the crew that collects and packages the candy. Special thanks to Kathleen and Kelly (again) and Jeanne Netherland, Carolyn Tobin, MaryAnn and Joe Kenney, Wansley Adams, Susan Watts, Bryan Ridste, Gary Graves, the volunteers from Vet Connect and the Hunger Task Force for their hours of work in making up boxes, helping with the distribution and so much more.

We are thankful to Scully Packing for their year after year gift of boxes for this program and to Hettie and Jim Hendrickson of Clover Stornetta Dairy for their gift of milk and butter for all the recipients.

To the Calpine employees we offer our gratitude for their incredible generosity in supplying gifts of bicycles and more for the children and to Lamont Kucer and his staff at Foods Etc. for their help with getting the food items ready for distribution.

We cannot forget Tim Weber of Perry’s Deli and Pastor Voris Brumfield of United Methodist Church for last minute assistance to our needs.

A very special thank you to Judy and Myron Meeks for their gift of Martinelli’s for all the family boxes.

Spirit of the Season commends the First Baptist Church and its community for allowing access to their space from which to do the distribution of gifts and food this year.

Finally we’d like to offer a round of applause to all who have made a donation to this year’s event. Donations to Spirit of the Season are still needed to cover this year’s expenses.

This program does not receive assistance from any other funding source other than the largess of our community.

Donations can be made to Spirit of the Season, P. O. Box 1468, Middletown 95461.  This grassroots community program is a tremendous outpouring of the goodness of our small town values.

Neighbors helping neighbors, businesses and community service organizations all supporting the needs of the least among us and people of all faiths keeping the Spirit of the Season alive in our midst.  

Hedy Montoya is co-coordinator of the Spirit of the Season fundraiser in south Lake County, Calif.