Many hundreds of kids and their families came streaming into Miller Community Center this morning, for the annual holiday party: games, gifts, photos with Santa and a holiday meal. 

Preliminary count from Laury: 1,662 kids!

(Here’s a VIDEO of kids on the bouncy toy in the Miller gym)

Special thanks to:

• Lake Street Catering for volunteering their efforts to cater the event, and to their volunteer helpers
• Rick’s Toys for Kids for all the toys
• all the volunteers who helped wrap presents, organize games, and keep the party running smoothly (and a special thank you to those who helped clean up)
• Miller Community Center staff who all went over and above the call of duty (and came in extra early) to ensure that the party went off so smoothly
• CHS Seattle for helping me recruit volunteers via a couple of featured posts
• Laury McKeen of Country Doctor, who runs the whole show and works harder than anyone else (IMHO)

BTW I ran into an interesting similar event being hosted at Nova School, adjacent to Miller,  at the same time:

Gifts for Kids is a program that began as a thought in Vance Bartley’s mind, a former 3-Striker.  He simply wanted gifts to be in the hands of kids who have a parent or guardian incarcerated who may not be available to provide gifts to their children.  He wanted the kids to have a festive day to spend with their family and others as well.

Here’s a report on their 2009 event.  Their event was the weekend after the Miller event last year: we’ll try and coordinate with them next year!