Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009

Changes expected to improve Hometown Christmas event

by Clarke Davis

Changes are being made to better streamline the annual “Hometown Christmas” drawing at Valley Falls that should increase the odds for those attending to win a prize and speed up the process.

“We are also adding an extra drawing to encourage more donations of food for God’s Storehouse,” reports Leslee Bowers, an organizer of the event for the Chamber of Commerce.

Some changes will speed up the process and others are made to better match the prizes with the children receiving them.

Different colored slips are used to divide adult and children’s gifts and the children will now be divided into two age categories, birth to 7 and 8 to 17 years. This will be done to better match the gift to the age of the child.

People who attend the event at the township hall will sign in at the door. That is something new this year. About 60 percent of the gifts are awarded to people who must be present to win — but in the past a lot of slips were drawn of people not present.

“Now all those slips will be in a group my themselves and it should cut some of the time by not drawing names of people who aren’t there,” Bowers said.

A separate drawing will be new this year for the people who bring a donation of food. A person will be able to sign as many registration slips as they have food items — 10 cans, 10 slips.

“The winner of this drawing will receive a $25 Chamber of Commerce gift certificate,” Bowers said.

As in past years, small gift bags will be available for all children who do not win a prize.

The “Hometown Christmas” drawing will start the day after Thanksgiving, Nov. 27, and conclude on the day Santa Claus comes to town, Dec. 12.

Bowers said the Chamber normally spends about $1,000 for gifts and gives away more than 100 gifts that are purchased or donated locally.