Playing Santa At Woodbury’s Middleton Elementary

It’s the giving season. And at in Woodbury, students and families are helping some of their own.

For the fifth year, the school has helped its students in need by providing Thanksgiving dinners and gifts at Christmastime. It’s an anonymous service, but the volunteers know they’re helping a neighbor who needs a little support during the holidays.

“You really are touching somebody’s life in our immediate community,” said Jean Flynn, who has two children at Middleton Elementary.

Flynn was one of a dozen or so parents who were wrapping the gifts on Monday. She said programs like Toys for Tots are nice, but the Middleton effort hits closer to home.

“They’re right here—they’re amongst us,” Flynn said.

There are about 15 families that will receive gifts this year, said Liz Brown, a third-grade teacher at Middleton who has headed up the Adopt A Family program for the past five years.

Gifts and monetary donations (used to purchase presents) were accepted, and the school tries to fill students’ wish lists, Brown said.

She and one other Middleton staffer are the only ones who know which students receive the donations. Brown said she wishes others could see the appreciation of the Middleton families that benefit from the program.

“As cliché as it sounds, I’ve been literally brought to tears by the unparalleled generosity of our staff and other families,” Brown said. “It’s completely priceless. It makes such a difference.”

More than 100 gifts will be given to Middleton’s less fortunate families, Brown said. Christmas carols were playing at the Woodbury school Monday as parents and student volunteers wrapped the gifts.

In addition to the gifts and Thanksgiving dinners, the program also helps purchase winter clothes for the families, Brown said. The families will pick up the gifts in the next few days, or school officials will drop them off at their homes.

The families that benefit often send cards expressing their thanks afterward, and one Middleton mother who previously received gifts started a similar program at her workplace, Brown said.

“As a teacher, I saw a need and proposed it to the principal. She said, ‘Let’s do it.’ And it’s been so successful that we’ve done it every year thereafter,” Brown said.