Published: December 20, 2009 09:12 pm      

Gifts with a homemade touch

Jessica Southern and the rest of her first-grade class at Tunnel Hill Elementary School were busy making Christmas presents for strangers recently.

Each student at the school decorated a brown paper bag that will be filled with Christmas presents and delivered through the Meals on Wheels program to 283 sick and elderly clients in Whitfield County.

“When people are sick, I think they should get cheered up to feel better,” Jessica said while putting some final touches on her drawing of a stocking, snowman and other holiday highlights.

In-home nutrition assistant Debbie Graham said she approached school officials about doing the project for Meals on Wheels and principal Bert Coker was happy to help.

Teacher Betty Maddox said she used the opportunity to teach her first-grade class that Christmas presents don’t have to come from a store.

“The best gifts I have ever received were homemade gifts,” Maddox said. “You can’t go to the store and buy love.”

Student Noah Pickel, finishing a large drawing of a snowman, said he is planning at least one homemade Christmas present for a family member. He said class members were coloring the bags “so we can make them happy and make them remember when they were a kid.”

Graham said Meals on Wheels clients receive one delivered meal each day through the service, but the decorated bags will be used to deliver Christmas presents over several days this week.

“(Our clients) get real excited when they see something that little kids have done,” Graham said. “Anything that kids do for them, they love it.”

Coker said students designed the bags themselves.