OPERATION SANTA CLAUS

Food Baskets & Angel Tree

Thank You!

We would like to thank the parishioners of St. Isidore's Catholic Church ,
as well as the staff and parents of St. Isidore's School,
for your overwhelming generosity to each year's Angel Tree!

HOPE TO SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!

Operation Santa Claus started slowly, sometime in the 1970s. In 1984 we became affiliated (toys only) with the CAN* "Toys for Tots" program. In 2000 we became affiliated with the Red Cross after CAN discontinued the "Toys for Tots." Currently this program is coordinated by the St. Isidore Food Locker. For more information please email .

Every year around Thanksgiving, parishiones are encouraged to nominate famlies to "Operation Santa Claus" who are experiencing financial difficulties. The nominated family will be interviewed by a committee member from the parish. After the interview, a 'wish list' will be requested from the family, asking for the ages, sizes and/or any special wishes for each member of their household.

If you are a prishioner and you know of a family in need of assistance this Crhistmas, please call the Parish Office at 673-1573 to make the nominatation. Please be prepared to provide the the name of the family's contact person including their address and phone number.

On average, every Christmas we assist about 30-40 families with food baskets and gifts of bikes, toys and clothes for their children - between 80-100 children.

Remember nominations begin in November of each year!

Food donations are solicited, collected, assembled into bags for each family and then delivered by members of St. Isidore Life Teen.

On or before the first Sunday of Advent, the Angel Tree is set up in the vestibule of the church. On the tree are stockings with information for each child - age, sizes and wishes. Parishioners are asked to take a stocking, purchase and wrap gifts, and return them to the parish office by a mid-December deadline. Parishioners, not wishing to shop, may make a cash donation and we will shop for the remaining stockings. The gifts are sorted by family and additional items are purchased as needed to be sure each child receives something. The gifts and food are distributed by members of St. Isidore Life Teen to the families on a pre-arranged date.

Bishop of Myra (Fourth Century) Feast day Dec. 6. The great veneration with which this saint has been honored for many ages and the number of altars and churches which have been everywhere dedicated in his memory are testimonials to his holiness and of the glory which he enjoys with God. St. Nicholas is venerated as the patron saint of several classes of people—especially in the East, of sailors, and in the West, of children. The former is probably due to the legend that during his lifetime, he appeared to storm-tossed mariners who invoked his aid off the coast of Lycia and brought them safely to port. His parents died when he was a young man, leaving him well off and he determined to devote his inheritance to works of charity, giving rise to his patronage of children and various observances, ecclesiastical and secular, connected therewith (especially in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands) and the giving of presents in his name at Christmas time. This custom in England is not a survival from Catholic times. It was popularized in America by the Dutch Protestants of New Amsterdam who had converted the popish saint into a Nordic magician (Santa Claus=Sint Klaes= Saint Nicholas) and was apparently introduced into this country by Bret Harte.