Pikes Peak United Way provides elementary students with gifts
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Christmas Cheer is spreading in Colorado Springs. Today, Pikes Peak United Way surprised students with gifts at the three under-served elementary schools in Colorado Springs.
Wrapping paper, cookies, and hot cocoa brought the holiday spirit to Edison Elementary. The kids were squirming, excited, and cheering when Santa paid them an early visit.
Santa stopped by with two gifts for each student. One gift was something they needed, and the other was something they wanted.
For Milo Moran, it was Leggos and socks.
"I'm so happy. I'll play with them tonight when I get home!" said Milo Muran a kindergartener at Edison Elementary.
While the Barbies, Leggos, and games had kids smiling from ear to ear, the principal says the pillows, toothbrushes, and warm clothing mean even more.
"Like a little kid, open socks. And they were so excited to see their socks, a bag of socks, coats, blankets, pillows, you know, things for the students that they are like, I need the parents for like, we need this extra at home," says Robin Moore, Principal of Edison Elementary.
She says for many of these kids, it's the only gift they will receive.
"What a blessing for our families to have those things they can come home with and have at home. They may even put that under the tree. You know, they may rewrap it, who knows? But at this point, they're just so excited," said Moore.
Volunteers around the city gathered to donate, purchase, and wrap each gift.
"There's just so many of us in this community who have lived a life like this before where you just wish somebody was paying attention to you at some point. And we want them to see that really a community coming together is something that they feel incredibly loved," says Heather Steinman, a Pikes Peak United Way representative.
Pikes Peak United Way collected more than 1,700 gifts for students in our city.
Students at Edison, Carber, and Remington elementary schools in Colorado Springs received them this holiday season.
