Community, CCKids Staff Make Christmas Bright in 2024

January 9, 2025

Port St. Lucie – This year's holiday season saw a marked increase in participation and impact thanks to a returning army of community sponsors, a healthy increase in new recruits and added efficiencies.

Combined, they added up to a first-ever 100 percent success rate.

"We were able to find sponsors for children entering the system up through the second week of December," said Christina Kaiser, community relations director for Communities Connected for Kids, the organization that oversees foster care and related services in Okeechobee and the Treasure Coast.

That's a first for the gift drive, which started in 2001. Until this year, children who entered the system after the first run of wish lists were assigned sponsors in early fall received gifts through general drives.

General drives pull in a variety of gifts, from which toys are pulled for children without sponsors. Sponsorship, on the other hand, fulfills specific gift requests.

"We have always cut off sponsorships in October due to a limited number of sponsors and the amount of preparation required to pull together a gift drive," Kaiser said. A 20-percent increase in sponsors and a decrease in the total number of children in care made it possible to continue taking sponsorship requests nearly up to Christmas.

One sponsor in particular - Keller Williams in St. Lucie West - sponsored 100 children for three gifts each and is considering an earlier start in order to double that number in 2025.

Additionally, CCKids holiday involvement expanded beyond its signature toy drive.

The new Early Services Engagement Program, designed to prevent children from being removed from home, received a Christmas benefactor, while an online drive fleshed out the need for general toys. CCKids' caregiver support staff also worked with community partners to celebrate local foster and kinship families with holiday parties - some, like the Junior League of Indian River County, coming back for the 21st year.

Even one of the area's oldest and most trusted gift drives was led by CCKids staff.

CCKids Intake and Operations Specialist Virginia Howell led the St. Lucie County Marine Corps Toys for Tots program for a third year.

"These kinds of partnerships help us build and maintain trust in the community, which further benefit the children and families we serve," Kaiser said. "I'm really proud of our staff for its engagement in the community."