When students go home for a two-week winter break at the end of the school day Thursday, Dec. 19, Cheryl Wilkerson and Mindy Vincent will make sure those in need will have food to eat and Christmas gifts to open.

For 12 years, as part of the Back Pack Buddy program, they have been feeding school children, sending them home on weekends with backpacks full of food.

For eight years they also have been overseeing a Christmas Angel Tree, collecting new unwrapped gifts provided by generous donors and spending countless hours wrapping the packages that are later eagerly torn open by the eager children.

“We’ve been wrapping for a week. I did 20 at home and she did 50 at home by herself. We have it down to a science,” Mindy said.

Other volunteers also help wrap.

“We do it because otherwise a lot of kids might not have Christmas,” Cheryl said. “We make sure they have a set of clothes, a pair of shoes and at least two toys.”

“We try to make sure they have a happy Christmas, something to celebrate,” Mindy said.

Cheryl and Mindy operate out of a small room at the elementary school that at this time of the year is crammed with toys and clothes as well as food and is a beehive of activity.

“We start collecting gifts the week before Thanksgiving,” Cheryl said. “We have gifts for kids from birth to 18 – from younger siblings all the way through high school.”

For the Angel Tree, contributors “adopt” a child whose name and information are chosen from a list of students.

“We feed 84 every week through the back pack program and provided gifts this year for 123 in the Angel Tree program,” Cheryl said.

The Christmas gifts were to be picked up Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

The back packs are to be taken home Thursday, Dec. 19, the last day of school prior to the start of Winter Break, which lasts from Dec. 20 till Jan. 6.

For the upcoming weekend, the students receive three meals a day, including breakfast and entrée for lunch and dinner.

Also, two snacks, juice and milk.

Since the students will be out of school for the next two weeks, rather than send them home with that much food, the Back Pack Buddies program provides each child’s family with a $25 Nichols gift card for groceries.

“They can’t be used by the parents to purchase alcohol or tobacco,” Cheryl said.

Also, Cheryl said three bags of groceries were given to the needy families at Thanksgiving.

Gods Helping Hands gives away food boxes before Christmas, which also supplements the children’s food needs during the break.