MERIDIAN, Idaho — Patients at St. Luke’s Meridian Medical Center will be getting a little extra holiday cheer this year thanks to heartfelt Christmas gifts made by local children.
The handmade gifts were delivered to the Meridian hospital Monday. Children from Calvary Chapel Meridian spent several Sunday mornings coloring Christmas cards, making holiday clips, and decorating cinnamon and snowmen ornaments. The gifts and cards will then be placed on food trays for each patient in the hospital on Christmas morning.
“Our hope is just to spread some cheer. Being in the hospital has got to be kind of a low, especially on Christmas Day, so we just wanted to put something on their trays that they could see and just remember that someone was thinking about them this year,” said Cheryl Henbest, a St. Luke’s employee and Sunday school teacher who helped the kids make the items.
This is the second year this group has made gifts for hospital patients. This year, Henbest says they came up with crafts the kids ages three to 11 could do on their own. The church congregation collected K-cups for several months to make the bodies of the snowmen, then the kids glued them together and added colorful decorations.
“Each one is a little different depending on the child,” explained Henbest as she showed off the more than hundreds of ornaments and cards that were hand-delivered by Avery and Elizabeth Pachman.
The cards were not only colored by the children, but some included kind messages or silly jokes on the back to try to cheer up patients and make them smile.
Ron Stenton is the Food and Nutrition Supervisor who had the opportunity to meet the kids and say thank you. “We have our patients here on Christmas and they are away from their families, maybe they are scared. This is something that can help take away from their current situation and just make their day better on Christmas, when they really should be home with their families.”
