Kids Cross Off Their Lists

WAITSBURG - Waitsburg's Town Hall was turned into a child's Christmas-shopping paradise last Thursday night.

For about 15 years, community volunteer Rose Englebrite said the hall has played host to vendors who set up tables and sell gifts for $10 and under for the community children to purchase as gifts for their families.

"It's just a night for the kids to come out and shop for what they want to," Englebrite said.

Children love the event because they get to leave the parents behind and take their list and do the shopping on their own. Volunteers from the high school's Leos Club, FFA and the Rainbow Girls escort the young children and help them buy a gift for everyone on their list. The event serves as a service project for the high schoolers. The older volunteers also help wrap the purchased gift in bright-colored paper and shiny stick-on bows.

Vendors offered all sorts of gifts from jewelry, to crafts, to ornaments and stuffed animals.

Rainbow Girl Margaret Potolicchio, age 14, has been escorting little ones on their gift buying adventures for two years now.

Last Thursday night, she was helping the Torres children, Mia and Maxwell, ages 3 and 6, to buy gifts. Mia was happily toting around a green gift sack with a loofah inside and Maxwell had a bag with two small birdhouses and a snowman kit. The Torres' were a bit too shy to talk about their presents, but Mia did manage to squeak out that her favorite color is pink.

"You get to help the kids shop and it's fun," Potolicchio said. "You learn something about the kids."

In addition to the Torres kids, other children were running through the front doors with wads of cash in hand.

Vendors smiled and helped the kids with their purchases. An older gentleman handed out chocolate candies to smiling kids.

They scrambled around with plastic bags over their arms and watched in earnest while volunteers carefully wrapped their gifts.

During this time, parents huddled in two rooms separate from the main hall drinking warm beverages, munching on cookies and laughing.

Once their shopping was complete, they picked up their parents at the front of the building and headed home with arms full of gifts.