Our objective is that every child gets three articles of clothing, three toys and a Christmas stocking.

THIS YEAR we have a few more families seeking out help. But, donations have also been good this year. People have been very generous.

Every family has a code number. We then send out cards to the various families and they are given a time to pick up their gifts that are assembled according to that code number.

Anything that has not been distributed the year before is kept and that's how we start off the next year.

We kept the tree up for him, but I had my boys take it out back. Christmas is over. He died fighting for somebody's freedom he didn't even know.

Janice Robinson, who contributes Christmas gifts for the children that the center works with, is a friend of mine for many years. She told me that they were having trouble raising funds this year because everyone was contributing to Hurricane Katrina relief.