Franklin County Habitat for Humanity to Host Kids Christmas Shopping Night

Coming up next month, the Franklin County Habitat for Humanity will be hosting its annual Kids Christmas Shopping Night at the Habitat Thrift Store in Lavonia.
Every year, Habitat opens its doors to children to give them a chance to shop for Christmas gifts for their family and friends.

Habitat Executive Director Cathy Wood says it’s a wonderful time for the kids and their Habitat helpers,
“Awh, is really just an exciting time of year especially for the children. Well I can’t say just for the children, we all enjoy it all so, we will be opening our doors on the 7th of December between the hours of five and seven p-m. And this gives the children the opportunity to come in only by themselves and shop for, their family, their friends, anybody but themselves. They are not allowed to shop for themselves.”

Wood said throughout the year, the Habitat staff prepares for this exciting night of shopping by making sure the children have plenty of items in the store to choose from,
“We’ve been putting back special items, a lot of new items that have been donated to us. Anything that is new, we put it back for kids night, so they have the opportunity to be able to shop for something new, something used, you know whatever is in their budget. The new stuff is priced very low for the children.”

Wood says as the children shop and choose their gifts, volunteers are on hand at several gift wrapping stations to wrap their presents before taking them home.

According to Wood, parents are not allowed inside while their kids shop.

Additionally, they do not need to make appointment to bring their child to the Kids Christmas event and she says they can be confident their children will be safe,
“What happens is, they come into the door, they have a wristband. It has their name and a telephone number where we can reach someone. And then we give them the go, they take off. Of course we volunteers throughout the store to help them, like if they are looking for a certain shirt size of if they are looking for gift that they cannot just get into their mind. The gifts are wrapped for them. They sign the tags, we pack them up, and we call the number on the arm band and make sure that it’s their mother or father that picks them up.”

Again, the Kids Christmas shopping event takes place Wednesday, December 7th from 5p to 7p.

This is the seventh year Franklin County Habitat has held the Kids Christmas shopping event.