What did you do today? I wrapped Elf Louise Toys!

Today  a few of my friends and I from our Tied Together Quilt Bee went to wrap presents for the Elf Louise program here in San Antonio.  Not all our members could attend this year, but we still had a good time.   This is our 6th year of volunteering.    Elf Louise was started in 1969 by a lady named Louise who wanted to give toys to some kids for Christmas who might not get anything from Santa.  It has grown to a HUGE giving program with 98% of the donated funds  going directly to toys for the kids.  This year over 4500 volunteers will wrap over 50,000  toys and  Santa and his helpers will deliver to the 5800 families starting December 22.  Each child on the list receives TWO toys, and the older teenagers receive Movie tickets.   To read more about it:   http://www.elflouise.com/about.php

This year the wrapping event is taking place in an empty Mervyn's store at Southpark Mall.  I'll share more of this story with my pictures.

This is where the wrapping crews check in to get the envelopes with the kids names and  ages.

Then we get to go shopping for the toys; aisle after aisle all displayed with each section having the appropriate ages on a display stand...TWO toys per kid.(GIRLS - Age 5-6)  Lots of dolls, tea sets, drawing/color sets, crafts sets.

Next we get our wrapping paper, scotch tape, scissors and go to our tables to start wrapping.

Here's another view of some of the toys we can choose.  CD players, bath sets, hairdryers, games. This place was HUGE!   I can't show you all the aisles of toys, as it would take up page after page on this blog.

That's me 2nd from the right in the red t-shirt.

When  all the toys are wrapped for each family, we take them to a check-in table so they can bag them and number them.  We then go back to the first check in table to receive the list for another family.

Here's just one room with the wrapped, bagged toys!  Each bag represents 1 family.  If the family is real large, then 2 bags are tied together.

After they are bagged for the families, they are put in the huge numbered boxes, ready for Santa to deliver them.  You can see some of the boxes overloaded on the LH side next to the wall.  Wow! 50,000 toys will bring smiles to a lot of little faces!  Such a HUGE giving program for our city...San Antonio, TX.

When we are finished, we like to go out to lunch and have some girl talk!  Another one of our bee members joined us for lunch.

Ahhhhhhhhhh! Our tummies are full and are feet are rested!  Time to go home, all of us with "warm fuzzies" in our hearts!