Support of a Local Community Program

From left to right (Jeff Jarrell - Sir Tux Formals, Elizabeth Howard – The Cordial Cricket, Carolyn Thompson – The 2008 Chesterfield-Colonial Heights Christmas Mother, Elizabeth Wells – Goodman & Company, George Emerson – Emerson Construction)

We held our annual Holiday Open House event at the store on Saturday, October 18th. It was great fun to kick off the holiday season with beautiful displays featuring a wide variety of holiday cards, party invitations and merchandise perfect for gift giving and entertaining. We offered special sales and provided our customers an opportunity to give to others in need this holiday season.

This year our store is sponsoring the local Chesterfield-Colonial Heights Christmas Mother program for the upcoming holiday season. Since the 2008 Chesterfield-Colonial Heights Christmas Mother, Mrs. Carolyn Thompson, also happens to be one of my customers, I invited her to join us at the store during the open house event to accept donations on behalf of the organization and greet customers. Carolyn gladly accepted the invitation and spent the day accepting donations from many generous customers. Donations included new items such as toys, children’s books and non-perishable food, as well as monetary donations. I also asked some other local business owners to join me in making corporate donations to The Christmas Mother. Together we raised just over $1500 in monetary donations, making the event a huge success. Some of the local business who made donations were: Emerson Construction, Goodman & Company, Sestra Bridal & Evening Wear, Sir Tux Formals, Flagstop and The Village News. I would like to personally extend a huge Thank-You to my fellow local business friends who made monetary donations to The Christmas Mother during our Open House.

The Chesterfield-Colonial Heights Christmas Mother program exists to ensure that in our community no family is without food, no child is without toys and clothing and no elderly person is forgotten as we celebrate the holidays. We will continue to accept donations of new kids toys, books, non-perishable food and monetary donations at our store until December 7th. We will also continue thanking those customers who bring donations by discounting their purchases 10%. To read more about The Christmas Mother program visit their website.