News

The Winter Wonderland that almost wasn't

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Rachel Hammes
  • 55th Wing Public Affairs
OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. --  The Offutt Enlisted Spouses Club held its 21st annual Winter Wonderland Event at the Bellevue Social Center Dec. 12.

While the event went off smoothly - the club provided gifts for 300 children of active duty or retired enlisted service members, as well as face painting, breakfast and a photo with Santa - the day before was a different story.

The club has, in previous years, made an agreement with a manufacturer to buy toys at cost. While everything usually goes smoothly, this year the club ran into a hitch.

"We ordered the toys in the beginning of November and they shipped it the following week," said Kelly Palmer, the Toy Chair and president of the Enlisted Spouses Club. "We should have had it by the end of November, but the shipping company lost it. When we realized it was lost, they re-shipped, and promised delivery the day before the event. And it didn't show up! It ended up stuck in Kansas City in some terminal somewhere."

Palmer got the call about the missing toys at noon Dec. 11, and called the chair of the event, Jamesena Moore.

"I called Jamie and said, 'Excuse me, I'm really emotional right now. If I cry, it's because we're not getting our toys,'" Palmer said. "And she said, 'Cry if you need to cry. And then pull yourself together and go shopping.' I said, 'Okay, I can do that.'"

Palmer and her husband took to the stores, walking through aisles of toys with two carts. When she found a toy suitable for an age range and gender, she'd fill her cart with it.

"It was the craziest shopping experience of my life, but it was a blast," she said. "We just were throwing toys into our carts. When we got up to the checkouts we got some strange looks."

While it was a stressful experience, it didn't break the bank, she said.

"Our budget went from $1,200 to almost $3,800. We take a number of donations for this event, and we have a number of sponsors who are just incredible about giving every year. We've managed it well so money wasn't an issue - but it was craziness."

The next morning, Winter Wonderland took place without a hitch. The children milled around, faces painted, and clutching the toys they almost didn't get.

"Nobody had any idea," Palmer said. "On our end, it was chaos, but on their end, they were smiling and happy and enjoying themselves. They had no idea what had happened the day before."

Moore said she was pleased with the work of volunteers like Palmer, who went the extra mile to make the event happen.

"There was never a thought in anyone's mind that this was not going to happen," she said. "We were prepared to do what it takes to make our fellow enlisted military families feel 'Home for the Holidays.'"