Stanley members Duane Booth, Dave Jankoski, Norm Christianson, Carl Edwardson, and Gary Krueger stand next to the many bags of presents from the Spirit of Christmas of Chippewa Falls. Submitted photo.

Every year since 1988 the Spirit of Christmas of Chippewa County has been distributing Christmas gifts to families in need.

On Saturday, December 19, several Stanley Lions Club members drove to Chippewa Falls to pick up gifts for distribution to families in Stanley and Boyd. With the aid of the Stanley- Boyd School District trailer, Lions members loaded the trailer with gifts and brought them back to the Stanley Fire Station. There they were met by more Lions members and the many bags of gifts were unloaded and brought in to the Fire Station and sorted for distribution.

Beginning at 10:00 a.m. the first of 56 families began to arrive to pick up their packages.

Lions members who assisted with the project were Duane Booth, Carl Edwardson, Ben Isenberger, Norm Christianson, Dave Jankoski, Jerry Dirkes, Larry Ciokiewicz, and Gary Krueger.

The Spirit of Christmas of Chippewa County is a non-profit organization. The all-volunteer organization only uses donations to accomplish its mission of distributing Christmas gifts to families in need. One-hundred percent of donations are used for acquiring and distributing the gifts to families of Chippewa County.

In all, over 500 families and approximately 1,400 children from Cadott, Chippewa Falls, Cornell, Stanley, Boyd, and the north side of Eau Claire, all of which are in Chippewa County, received presents.