WAPAKONETA — It is almost the end of the year for Christmas Jubilee in Wapakoneta, but it has been a busy year. Christmas Jubilee took over for Christmas Cheer when the local fire departments decided not to do the program.

Becky Puff took over the program with the agreement the name would be changed. Last year Christmas Jubilee served 42 families who needed help with food and/or gifts for the holiday season. It was decided Christmas Jubilee could no longer deliver the gifts to the homes and the families would pick up their food and gifts.

Christmas Jubilee is 100% dependent on local businesses and residents. They are a non-profit 501c3 organization. All the help is 100% volunteer and no one is paid to work with this organization.

This year there are 104 families who need help with food and/or gifts for Christmas. There was a gift registry set up on Amazon and Walmart for people to send gifts from the comfort of their home or to have them delivered from other areas of the United States. This year is the first year they set up a Venmo to collect money to help buy gifts and bikes for the kids.

And the Venmo account will continue throughout the year to help pay for more food and gifts next year.

“I had to continue some kind of program to help the less fortunate families in our community,” Becky Puff, chairman, said. “Every child should have food on the table over the holidays while they are out of school and how does a family explain Santa why Santa did not come this year.”

“It breaks my heart seeing these families and some of them are kinship families where the grandmother has custody, or another family member is taking care of the children. They need our help,” she said.

The families can only get help from Christmas Jubilee and not from Shop with the Blue, shopping with a Church program or in another town. For everyone to get food and gifts communication between organizations is essential.

“Everyone should get something for Christmas, and we make sure families are not “double dipping” by getting assistance from several organizations,” Puff explained. “There are more families needing help and if everyone gets assistance from one organization, we can help more people.”

“Our goal was to help 100 families and we were at about 90 on our October 25 deadline so we had room when people came to us after the deadline,” Puff said. “We had a few moms coming to us for just presents for their children, thanks to the community and the gift registries, we can help more children with gift for under their trees.”

Putting the event together was a major production and everyone on the Christmas Jubilee has their heart in this organization and what it is doing. When the people come for their boxes on Saturday morning the families will come in and someone will follow them home, with the bikes in trucks, if they cannot fit them in their vehicles.

“Because of all the love we have been given every one of the kids who needed bikes will be getting a brand-new bike,” Puff said. “We have few more that we will be giving out on Saturday morning as well.”

Christmas Jubilee is making plans for next year already and is expecting even more families to apply for help. It is a blessing to be working with an organization that helps so many people, Puff said.