<p>Enterprise High School teacher Debbie Hadden (left) works with student volunteers Elsa Steen (center) and Kylie Willis readying Christmas baskets for delivery in the annual program run by the Enterprise Elks.</p>

Santa Claus had a lot of help spreading Christmas cheer this year from a host of community elves who volunteered for the annual Elks Christmas Basket Program.

Baskets full of donated food and gifts were delivered to 200 households Friday, Dec. 23, just in time for Christmas.

“I tell you, the support I’ve gotten on all aspects of this project has been amazing. I had 12 volunteers here at 6 a.m.,” said Jeff Rynearson Friday morning, checking the last code names off his list, about two hours ahead of last year. In 2010 a record 254 families benefited from the program.

He estimated that 40 or so volunteers were on hand on delivery day, some veteran program workers and some newcomers, not counting those who’d worked many days and hours leading up to D-Day.

Rynearson, who’d previously worked as a volunteer, chaired the local program for the first time this year. His co-chairman was Keith Hatfield, manager of the Enterprise Elks Lodge. The pair took over the program from longtime coordinators Chuck Haines and John Neil, who passed on their Santa hats after 13 years.

Barb Harvey, known as head elf in charge of gifts, and her crew of family and friends, worked all last week making sure that all the presents from the Tree of Giving went to the right child, senior citizen or adult living alone.

“We’ve been a little more generous with the baskets this year, because we are down a little,” Harvey said. She inherited the gift part of the basket program in 1997 from her mother, Lois Harvey, who’d been part of the project since 1974 and founded the wildly-successful Tree of Giving in 1978. “I’ve been helping with this since junior high and high school,” said Barb Harvey.

Harvey said that 477 handmade ornaments were placed on the Tree this year, and over 400 were retrieved by community members who then brought in gifts. “I think that’s excellent,” Harvey said. “I think community support was really wonderful.”

As always, volunteer shoppers filled gaps left in gift and food donations through monetary donations.

Enterprise High School’s Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) and FFA chapters held food drives to help fill the baskets, as did the elementary school, contributing almost 1,000 items. Approximately 50 students, including FCCLA members, alumni, and home ec class members, also worked in shifts to help pack the boxes.

As in the past, many organizations or businesses contributed specific food items. The VFW auxiliary again wrapped all boxes in festive Christmas wrap. Rynearson said it was hard to count the exact number of volunteers on the project or how many contributed in many different ways..

Rynearson noted that this year basket recipients had to take the initiative to sign up and fill out a form, which probably partially explains the drop in the number of basket deliveries. There has also been a drop in the unemployment rate over last year.

Rynearson, who often gets around in an electric scooter because of Parkinson’s disease, grew up in Wallowa County and graduated from Enterprise High School in 1976.

He was a manager at Safeway in The Dalles for many years, and volunteered for several years on a similar Christmas program in The Dalles, two years as chairman.

Ironically, one year he was the recipient of a Christmas basket. “It was right after I’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and there was a time I had no income coming in,” he said. “That year I needed some help.”

Friday morning several volunteers expressed satisfaction in giving of themselves to help others during Christmas season. One was first-year volunteer Judy Aschenbrenner, who is retired from her day care work and now has time to help out by wrapping, packing and delivering Christmas baskets.

One delivery in particular stands out in her mind. “There were three little girls in Joseph. When they saw us coming their eyes got so big. … It’s really about the children. That’s what gets to my heart.”