Carmi Christmas Elves and volunteers are handing out around 400 pairs of shoes to Carmi-White County School District children today (Friday). Since the program’s inception, President Cynthia Attebury says they’ve given away more than 3,000 pairs through the organization’s Kicks for Kids Program. She says it’s one of her favorite days of the year.
It’s a very big day…the most important day of the year. It’s hard to put into words what the impact is. I was one of those kids that got free meals and free cheese. I was one of those kids that didn’t get to go school shopping and all new stuff. To see the kids come in here and the excitement on their face to get a new pair of shoes and show them off, it really puts everything into perspective. What you think are problems are are nothing compared to what some other peoples are.
While the Christmas Lights of Hope are taking a year off, Attebury says it will be back and bigger than ever with the 2026 holiday season. While taking the year off will have an impact, the organization was lucky to have a nest egg built up to continue the shoe giveaway. What they need are volunteers.
There will be a small impact. We were lucky we did have somewhat of a nest egg because we were watching what we were spending and trying to cut back where we could. Obviously, anytime you take a year off when you raise $30,000 – $40,000 a year, there’s going to be an impact. I can’t stress enough our need for volunteers. We need people to come out and help put lights up. There’s a core group of about 8 people doing most of the work and this really takes more than just 8 people. Potential volunteers can get ahold of me through the facebook page by messaging it…there are a couple of us that have access to that. I’d love to see another organization come in and want to partner with us and help continue this event because it’s a program that is needed in this area.
You can learn more about the program by finding Carmi Christmas Lights of Hope on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076208870328.