The local community certainly came together to make the Rotary Club of Jim Thorpe Annual Holiday Giving Project 2012 possible.

The goal of the project is to give clothing to children in need during the holidays.The budget is based on club-raised funds supplemented by a matching grant from the Mauch Chunk Trust Company as well as gifts from two amazing anonymous angels.Early in the fall, a former club member asked counselors in Jim Thorpe's LB Morris and Penn Kidder Elementary Schools as well as St. Joseph Regional Academy and Head Start to ask families for clothing needs and sizes for all of the children in their family.This year, there were 147 children in 60 families.Using those list, Mrs. Stephanie Barto and her elves at Carbon Career and Technical Institute (CCTI) pre-marked Forman Mills yellow shopping bags with school and name codes and attached them to the lists.On shopping day this year, Monday December 17, Rotarians, spouses, friends, and CCTI Marketing students, 33 in all, invaded Forman Mills in Whitehall as their doors opened at 9 AM.Shopping took about three hours and checkout another two hours until 2 PM.The checkers were careful to only process one bag at a time to ensure accuracy.In all, 966 items were purchased for the 147 children in 60 families at a total cost of $6,268.After safe overnight storage, the bags were unloaded at Jim Thorpe Area High School where 14 members of the National Honor Society helped Rotarians remove tags and fold everything.The items were then put into holiday bags, and back into the yellow Forman Mills bags, and then into Rotarian's cars for delivery to the schools.After that, a well-deserved quick lunch of pizza was enjoyed by all.While organized by the Rotary Club of Jim Thorpe, the project was supported heartily by many other members of the community, without whose help it could not have been done.