Community Corner
Nestle Waters Helps Stuff Valley Christmas Stockings
$10,000 donation provides toys for Spirit of the Lehigh Valley's Dec. 24 event
Nestle Waters of Breinigsville extinguished a potential Christmas emergency with a $10,000 donation to the Spirit of the Lehigh Valley charity Thursday that will help stuff the stockings of needy children.
The Spirit of the Lehigh Valley event is an annual Christmas Eve meal and gift giveaway for needy families held at the Fogelsville Holiday Inn Conference Center.
The group usually receives toy donations from the local Toys for Tots chapter. However, due to increased demand this year, that program did not have toys to spare.
Nestle Waters officials presented the $10,000 check to George Pitsilos, who spearheads the annual Spirit of the Lehigh Valley drive.
"I'm sleeping tonight. I had not been for awhile," Pitsilois said. "Toys for Tots was pleading for toys just like I was. A week ago, we had only 100 toys here. I panicked."
Pitsilos, who was expecting over 5,000 people to attend the Christmas Eve meal, sent out a distress call to local media. Nestle Waters already supplies bottled water to the Holiday Inn, "but this was there way of saying they wanted to do more," said Pitsilos.
The Nestle Waters donation funded the purchase of more than 3,000 toys for the Spirit of the Lehigh Valley's Christmas Eve event.
The ceremony doubled as a "wrapping party," temporarily transforming the ballroom of the Holiday Inn Conference Center into Santa's workshop. More than 100 volunteers from across the Lehigh Valley, some of whom had signed up to help back in September, gift-wrapped dolls, action figures, board games and stuffed animals piled high in the center of the room.
The gifts were sorted into smaller groups based on the age range of the toy and whether it was appropriate for a boy, a girl, or both.
Renee Carthew, a manager at Holiday Inn, was one of the wrappers in attendance. "We enjoy doing this," she said. "It puts you in the Christmas spirit."
Nestle employees also took over the Holiday Inn's kitchen to bake up 8,500 Nestle Toll House cookies to be served at the charity meal on Christmas Eve. This was the 18th annual Spirit of the Lehigh Valley event.
"Our community is extremely important. It represents where we live, where our employees live," said Brad Wentz, an human resources assistant for Nestle Waters. "It was only appropriate we step in when the call for toys was needed."
"Nestle stepped up and did the job for us," said a grateful Pitsilos said. "They're our Santa Claus this year."
