SOLON — Things are understandably busy at the North Pole, headquarters for Santa Claus and his elves, as they work feverishly to produce toys for all of the good boys and girls to be delivered on Christmas Eve. Part of Santa’s seasonal duties includes going through many, many letters. This year, one in particular caught his eye and prompted a trip to Solon.
“I got a letter from young Miss (Rose) McAtee and she asked me if I could help her out with her food drive, and I had a little extra time so I decided to fly on down here,” said Mr. Kris Kringle, AKA: Santa Claus. Santa landed in Solon late Friday afternoon at the Solon Fire Department where McAtee and Ella Havlicek were busy collecting donations for the Solon Community Food Pantry.
“We’re in NHS and we wanted to come up with a (community service) project to give back to the community,” said McAtee, “and the Fire Department has been a huge part of my life. We have three generations of f iremen in the family, so we wanted to give back and so I came to the Fire Department with the idea and they’re like one family – they just all pitched in to help and make it happen.”
The volunteer firefighters transformed their meeting and training room into a reception room for Santa to meet with Solon’s children.
“We’re just hoping to bring the community together,” McAtee said. “My goal was to have people be able to see the family that the Fire Department is and hopefully experience a small part of that and give back to the people that are in need by donating food.”
“It’s Christmas time, everybody loves Christmas time so we just want to share the magic,” said Havlicek. “Christmas is all about giving gifts so the Food Pantry was a perfect thing to give to.”
When asked about how preparations for the big night were going up at the North Pole, Santa smiled and said, “Oh, they’re good. I’ve got the elves working extra hard this year, there’s a lot of good children this year.”
And, a lot of good adults too, who through their donations will help to fill the shelves of the Pantry and make the holidays a little brighter for those in need.