St. Tammany News

Members of the Slidell community joined together to wrap donated presents for the "Be a Santa to a Senior" program this week at the Adult Day Care Center.

Home Instead Senior Care, a non-profit organization that provides companionship and home care services for seniors, partnered with Rouses supermarket in Slidell to provide much-needed presents to senior citizens who may not get a gift this Christmas.

Mother and son Joyce Begnaud and Trey Begnaud do their part in wrapping gifts for seniors who may not get a gift this Christmas. (Staff Photo by Emily Garvin)

Girl Scout troops, high school clubs and regular good Samaritans showed up Monday night to wrap many of the donated gifts.

Laughter filled the air as everyone was in good cheer as they wrapped the presents. In between wrapping presents, volunteers munched on snacks, while listening to Christmas music that was played from a small stereo.

"We had a good turnout of volunteers this year. It is nice to see people take time out of their busy schedule to help out," said Len Snyder, co-owner of Home Instead in Slidell, along with his wife Evelyn. "Everyone seemed to be eager and willing to help out as much as they can."

Local churches, nursing homes, and living centers provided names of seniors who they believe would not receive a gift this Christmas to Home Instead, said Snyder.

"This year we have about 110 names to put on the tree," he said. "We had a big turnout of seniors this year, but we hope that next year we will bigger."

"We would like to help out as many seniors as we can," Evelyn Snyder said.

Rouses put up a large Christmas tree in its lobby after Thanksgiving with many large tree-shaped paper ornaments with senior citizens names and their Christmas gift wishes written on them. As customers shopped in the supermarket, they would take a paper ornament off of the tree and buy whatever gift was written on the ornament. The next time in they were in Rouses, they would drop the gift off with the name of the recipient.

If a name was chosen off the tree and the gift has yet to be dropped off the Home Instead organization will buy the gift the senior wanted and wrap it up for them.

"If a senior's name is on the list, they will get a present. There are about 30 gifts unaccountable as of now, we will wait a couple more days, but if we don't get one soon, we will go out a buy one ourselves," Evelyn Snyder said.

After all of the gifts had been collected from Rouses, Home Instead volunteers brought the gifts to the Adult Day Care Center to be wrapped by volunteers from the community.

For the rest of the week, Home Instead volunteers will be deliver presents to churches, nursing homes and living centers where they will be distributed to the seniors in need, said Len Snyder.

"We hope to bring a little bit of Christmas cheer to those in need," he said.