Santa answers The CALL
Jolly Old St. Nick answered The CALL and came to town early on Saturday to attend Breakfast with Santa at First United Methodist Church.
Breakfast with Santa is an annual event, now in its third year, that is held by The CALL, a faith-based, nonprofit organization that partners with area churches to serve children in foster care and their foster and adoptive families.
Around 400 tickets were used at the event this year. Around 300 of those tickets were sold, and the rest were given to foster, adopted and provisional children. Diane Wright, director of The CALL, said that there are several reasons for this event. A big reason is to
help these foster children have a better holiday.
“For kids in foster care, Christmas can be a tough time,” Wright said. This event helps “just make it a little more joyful,” Wright added.
Since they started Breakfast with Santa, Wright said they have raised $10,000 for foster families. She also said that each year the attendance at the event has doubled.
The money raised at this fundraiser will be used to help The CALL’s mission, which is to support foster families. Wright said that the local chapter of The CALL supports around 40 foster families. One way that they do this is that they have several The CALL Malls. These are clothing closets that have clothes for foster children.
There are two CALL Malls. One is for children aged 8 and younger and the other is for children 9 and older. The younger children’s mall is at the Goodwill on Central Avenue and the other one is at Hot Springs Baptist Church.
For the event this year, youngsters got to meet Santa, but that wasn’t the only thing they could do. There were several stations at the church where the kids could do things like create Christmas ornaments, make reindeer feed or write a letter to Santa. For the titular breakfast, the event had Santa-shaped waffles.
Wright wanted to thank First United Methodist Church for hosting the event this year. That is the third church to host it, following First Baptist Church of Hot Springs and Hot Springs Baptist Church. Wright said that a different church will be picked next year.
The CALL, and Breakfast with Santa, are Christian in nature, not denominational, Wright said. Breakfast with Santa is “about the church, not a church,” Wright said. The plan is for a different church to host the event every year. She also said that almost every church was represented at the event with volunteers.
Other people Wright wanted to thank for the event’s success were the event coordinators Lauren Jenkins and Chelsea Hall, and the event sponsors, the family of the late Chantz Preston. After Preston died, his family created a fund to help others. This year they chose to support Breakfast with Santa.
Wright also wanted to thank all the volunteers who helped.