Over the past several years, the employees and staff of the City of Midwest City have shared the holiday spirit with thousands of Midwest City residents through several special service projects, providing food, toys and necessities.  This year was no exception as numerous departments and hundreds of city employees and staff helped to make Christmas a little more cheery for hundreds of local families.

Here’s an overview of the projects for Christmas 2013:

Since 1997, the Human Resources Department, under the supervision of Linda Rooney, has been coordinating the employee food drive, which provides toys and food baskets to families throughout Midwest City. With help from Crest Foods, as well as monetary donations from employees, the drive assisted 21 families, representing 56 children this year.  With assistance from the Neighborhood Services Department, the baskets and toys are delivered to the families’ homes.

The Grants Management Department sponsors the Autumn House bucket project.  Each year, donations are gathered to provide personal items and special treats to nearly 200 Autumn House Senior Citizen residents. 

The Community Development Department, in conjunction with the Neighborhood Services Department, Fire and Police Departments, city employees, along with community partners Delta Dental, FNB Community Bank and local builders and developers sponsor a project called Santa’s Sleigh.  Under the coordination of Whitney Maslen and Dana Kirkland, over 200 adult hygiene packets and over 300 hygiene packets for babies through high school age were distributed to residents of the North Oaks and Holman East residential areas. 

This year, the Neighborhood Initiative division of the Neighborhood Services Department collected food items for a total of 81 food baskets.  During October, the Neighborhood Coordinators, Community Action Officers, Fire and Police Departments held a three day food drive at Sam’s Club.  Helping out this year with the preparation of the food baskets was the Midwest City High School National Honor Society.

For many years, the Police Department has held an event called ‘Shop with a Cop.’ With assistance from Walmart and grants, the department was able to give the children $100 to shop for their families and themselves.  This year, 37 children participated in the program.  In addition, the Police Department, in partnership with the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Department and the Oklahoma City Police Department, sponsored the annual ‘Grandparents Raising Grandchildren’ Christmas event.  The project provided 600 toys, 200 hams, photos with Santa and a holiday stocking to the recipients.