Video: Local Residents Adopt ‘Shining Stars’ For Christmas Gift Drive

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SALTILLO, MISS. (WCBI) – Sixty children and a few teenagers throughout Saltillo will get their Christmas wishes, thanks to a local organization and lots of Good Samaritans.

They showed up early Monday at Saltillo City Hall for a packing party.

“We are organizing everything,” said Sonya Burnett.

It’s part of a program known as Saltillo Shining Stars and it began several years ago when the Junior Women’s Club wanted to help make Christmas brighter for needy families.

“It was really on a much smaller scale where we worked with a couple of the schools in the area and several of the civic organizations pretty much took care of those children. This year we decided to cover all schools in the area,” said Burnett, who is program director.

Club members contacted school counselors to get the names of families who may need help this Christmas.

Once a family agreed to participate, mom , dad or a caregiver filled out a wish list, for all children in the house.

Then, two stars for each child were hung on a Christmas tree at city hall, one for clothes, the other for toys and locals picked up the stars, bought the gifts and brought them back to city hall, where the presents are bagged for each child.

Hope McCoy is part of this army of volunteers who are helping make a difference in the lives of needy families.

She says it was heart warming to see how the entire community rallied around the project.

“Even after all the stars were adopted , they still would say how can we help? Here’s money, put it however it can be used and I’m so proud of our community. We’re kind of the hands and feet of our community, we can’t do this ourselves, I don’t want to just toot our own horn, I want to toot the horn of the entire community because that’s what it takes,” McCoy said.

After all the Christmas wish lists have been filled, the ladies will load all the items into their cars and take them to local schools. They will be dropped off there and later this week parents will pick the presents up so they can have them ready Christmas morning.