Woodburn Independent Online

Volunteers help Love Santa

• By: Jason Horton  
• Published: 12/22/2009 10:08:11 AM
• Last Updated: 12/24/2009 8:45:05 AM

Love Santa Inc.
Janice Webb, Theresa Labansky and Tana Jo Webb stepped up and helped distribute food at Love Santa Inc.'s annual distribution day Dec. 19 at the Woodburn Armory.

WOODBURN — Nearly 500 boxes of food went out to local residents Dec. 19 on Love Santa Inc.’s annual distribution day.
 
Over 800 families were served through a variety of local agencies, including St. Vincent de Paul, the Hubbard police reserves, Mark Henny Nursery and Love Santa.
 
“I think we helped an awful lot of families with food and providing a better Christmas that they wouldn’t have had otherwise,” said Robert Prinslow, president of the Love Santa board of directors.
 
Prinslow, in his first year organizing the event, said there were some glitches and things will go much more smoothly next year.
 
“There are some improvements that we need to make in how we sort our family lists. … We could not verify some information when people came, but we are fixing that and will be delivering the gifts to them before Christmas Eve,” Prinslow said. “They were able to take their food boxes on Saturday. We will have a better situation in place next year. We already are making decisions to streamline the process. It will definitely be better.”
 
Prinslow also praised the scores of volunteers who helped on the day.
 
“This couldn’t be put on without the volunteers or all of the donations,” he said. “Many people stepped up and worked late Friday night to make Saturday a success.”
 
Prinslow added that the culmination of Saturday’s event brought the community closer.
 
“Overall, we helped out a lot of families and we got a lot of people from the community together helping in a variety of ways and it all adds to the benefit of a winning community,” he said.

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