Chico Firefighters Association hosts 25th annual children’s toy drive
CHICO » For 3-year- old Mila Sterling, having Santa deliver her Christmas gifts to her front porch on Saturday helped make Christmas a little more special this year.
Having just turned 3 earlier in December, Sterling is now understanding the concept of Christmas and is able to interact and talk with Santa. For Sterling’s dad Michael Sterling, a former Chico High School student, he said his daughter being able to experience Santa in a year of uncertainty is something she will be talking about all day.
Santa rode along to the Sterling’s apartment complex in Chico in a 1948 American LaFrance fire engine that used by the city of Chico as a reserve engine as late as 1995. He was joined by fellow Chico Fire employees from the Chico Firefighters Association in off-duty Chico Fire Engines for the 25th annual AdoptA-Family Christmas Gift and Foot Basket Delivery Day on Saturday. He peeked out from around a car, and began asking Mila Sterling what she asked for for Christmas and if she had been a good girl this year.
Chico firefighters fed 106 children from 36 families, with Santa masked and delivering gifts socially distanced. In traditional years volunteers would inspect smoke alarms and other fire safety in peoples’ homes, however with COVID-19 restrictions this year the group did not want the event to fall through. Instead they called the Santa delivery “Santa social distancing.”
Also different in this year’s event was that members of the public who traditionally volunteer for the event were absent to prevent the spread of the virus. Instead members of family of the members of the association helped wrap, sort and load gifts into trucks.
“Our goal is to literally have them have the best Christmas of their life,” said Chico Fire Inspector and coordinator of the event Marie Fickert. “We want to just love on these families because that’s what firefighters do. We got into this business because we want to help others.”
Firefighters either took vacation time to attend the event or took time away from their weekend to help out. For some, including Association president Ken Smith as well as Fickert, they have attended the event since its start 25 years ago.
“With Marie’s tenacity and her drive to serve our community and her ability to find those particular families that are just need a little boost this year, she comes through with an assortment of contacts that she’s made through the community, the system is there,” Smith said. “She’s built a rock solid system.”
Smith did the first event in his first year as a volunteer firefighter.
“That’s what I was born to do once I was introduced to the side of the family side and unity side of everything and the need,” he said.
The event was made possible by many sponsors of the event, including one of the leading sponsors: SERVPRO restoration services in Chico, which provided both employees as volunteers as well as toys. Other businesses allowed for toy drop-off bins in their businesses and for children’s names to be chosen. Toys are then hand selected for each child. The community has given back, and the firefighters get to pass on the blessing, Fickert said.
“Their kids can wake up on Christmas morning and have some gifts under the tree and just know that the Chico firefighters, we just love you guys,” Fickert said. “And we really want to help those out in our own community right here at home.”