Carthage— The Village Ecumenical Ministries (VEM) is hosting their annual Angel tree gift and food drive for needy families. November 30, 2012 is the last day for families to sign their children up for a gift for Christmas.
ABC50 spoke with volunteer Nancy Vermeulen, who is in charge of handing out the Angels to all local community churches. Approximately, 260 children will be given gifts this year. Every family receives a basket of food, which is provided by local donations to the VEM food pantry. The food basket is comprised of a Christmas dinner enough for an entire family, depending upon the amount of family members.
Children 14 and under can sign up for a gift through the Christmas food basket. Each child’s name gets placed on an Angel with information such as age, and what the child wants as a gift. The unique thing about this program, according to Ms. Vermeulen, “It has been a great out pouring where a lot of people have taken part in this. Every single church in Carthage is partaking in this.”
Ms. Vermeulen gathers all the Angels with children’s information on them and they are distributed to all of the churches in Carthage. As they partake in distributing them to members of the church who are interested in contributing to giving a needy child a special gift for the holidays. The deadline for those buying gifts for children is December 9, 2012 and once again, families that want to sign up their child for this gift giving opportunity is November 30, 2012.
452 South Washington Street, Carthage, New York 13619
Phone number (315)-493-1341
