DMN: Firefighters to the Rescue

DMN Feature Article
Thursday, December 14, 2006

Garland: Association takes local needy children on annual shopping excursion in the 22nd year of its Christmas toy drive

By MIKKI KIRBY / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

As Patricia Jimenez stood patient and shivering early Sunday morning outside Target in Garland, her children were anxious. Christmas was coming early.
The night before, Elizabeth Jimenez, 9, didn't have visions of sugar plums.
She was thinking of Hello Kitty sheets.
Thanks to the Garland Firefighters Association's annual shopping excursion, she got the item on the top of her list.
"I'm not working right now. This really helps," Ms. Jimenez said. "She wants to decorate her bed in Hello Kitty."
Elizabeth describes her bed as her sanctuary in the room she shares with her brother, Angel, 7, and their newborn sister.
"We wish we could take all their worries away. But we can't. We'll just make sure they get to enjoy Christmas," said firefighter Jerry Click, who's been coordinating the event and the fire association's annual toy drive for 22 years.
Seventy-nine children received $125 each to spend any way they wanted at Target.
Eight children chosen to be beneficiaries didn't show. Mr. Click said those families will receive gift cards.
Families were chosen through school counselors and according to need.
Thirty children were chosen from Caldwell Elementary School, where 83 percent of students get free lunches, according to school counselor Cari Slider.
"You can't help everyone, but you wish you could," she said, holding back tears.
"We try to find ways to help all of them. This event reaches a lot of our kids."
A volunteer or firefighter escorted each child. Many have witnessed the children buying gifts for their parents and grandparents over the years.
Children eagerly browsed through shoes, clothes, bicycles and toys for an hour before the store opened.
Jarmell Ross paused quietly in sporting goods and carefully chose a basketball. It was his first basketball since being relocated after Hurricane Katrina.
Several children proudly wheeled the bikes they'd chosen to checkout. Elizabeth smiled, her cart filled with Hello Kitty merchandise.
"We have to wrap them and put them under the tree," she said. "But that's OK, because we know they are there."
Last year, the department raised enough money to shop for 64 kids. This year's money came through private donations, a golf tournament and a boxing tournament. Whatever's needed, in the end Mr. Click knows firefighters will pull out their pocket change.
"We just make it work," said firefighter David Holcombe. "If Jerry could shop for 500, he would."
Mikki Kirby is a freelance writer in Dallas.