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Community Corner

Help Spread Christmas Cheer to Those in Need

Christmas Cheer Foundation is seeking volunteers to help assemble, deliver 12,500 meals to people in 30 area communities.

If you've finished your holiday shopping and want to spread a little seasonal cheer to those in need, a local foundation could really use your help.

The Christmas Cheer Foundation needs volunteers to help assemble and deliver an estimated 12,500 meals to individuals, families and seniors in 30 communities, including Oak Park and River Forest.

Assembly of a package of fruit, cakes and buns will take place at 8 a.m. Friday and Christmas Eve at the , 7200 W. Division St., at the corner of Harlem Avenue and Division Street, River Forest.

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“We’ll work until we’re done,” said Lucille Dalbis, one of the founders of the foundation, which started this tradition 30 years ago.

Assembly of the rest of the meal and the delivery will start between 5:30 and 6 a.m. Christmas Day, also at the Priory. “We usually finish up around 1 p.m.,” she said.

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What’s for supper? Ham steaks, potato salad, corn, buns, fresh fruit and pastry for dessert, Dalbis said. The food is either donated or purchased with donations.

Dalbis said the names of recipients come from a variety of sources: social service agencies, social workers and senior facilities. “We even have people from the Hines VA Hospital (in Maywood),” she said.

And the need has been steadily growing. Dalbis said they had seen a lot of seniors, who live alone and don’t have families, but now they are seeing a lot of families.   

Dalbis sees this effort as having a two-fold purpose: “It fills the need to help them and it fills the need to serve,” she said.

Volunteers can just show up and sign in, she said. Signs will be located outside the Priory directing people to the auditorium and the kitchen, where all the work will take place.

For more information, e-mail the foundation or call 708-383-0661. The foundation also is accepting donations to help offset the cost of the meals. For more information, log on here.  

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