Communicating holiday cheer

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Joel Pfiester
  • 509th Bomb Wing Public Affairs
WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. --  There is no age limit when it comes to the feeling of anticipation and excitement on Christmas morning. The holiday season is the time for families, friends and loved ones to come together and celebrate. Unfortunately for some, the holidays can be a lonely time of the year.

On Dec. 12, members of Whiteman's 509th Communications Squadrons, to include the 131st and 442nd, brought holiday cheer to those less fortunate.

For more than 20 years, the CS has made it a holiday tradition to visit the Johnson County Care Center in Warrensburg, Mo., to hand-deliver gift donations as well as spend time with the residents of the care center.

"The center has 68 to 87 residents that we adopt each year," said Cynthia Palmer, 509 CS. "Most of them don't have any family to speak of and if they do, they rarely get to see them, so we provide gifts and quality time with them. Most of the time the gifts are clothing but some of them have special requests such as baby dolls, stuffed animals or playing cards, something to provide them with a little bit of comfort."

Just before Thanksgiving, the JCCC provides the CS with a list of all the residents and some basic information about what each person wants or needs. The gift information is then put on gift tags in the shape of an angel.

Once the angels are created, Airmen come in and collect up to four of them, then go purchase gifts according to the information on the angel. 

After getting all the gifts together, the volunteers head to the care center to spend the day with the residents.

"We don't just drop off the gifts and leave," said Heidi DeBonis, 509 CS. "We stay there and interact with them and sing Christmas carols together. Each of the Airmen takes a gift off the table and even if it isn't the gift that they purchased they will take the time to sit with that individual, open their gift, take pictures and really interact with them before they go to get another gift. There is a lot of time and involvement and I really think they enjoyed it, the residents as well as the Airmen."

The appreciation shown by the residents is a reminder to not take things for granted.
"Being my first year, it's just extremely humbling," said DeBonis. "You walk in and their faces just light up. It could be the simplest thing like a pair of socks, or something that we take for granted every day, and they are just ecstatic that they received a gift. It's a great feeling and it's so nice to see smiles on their faces."