Just one thing blocked a perfect Christmas for many Hazel Dell families: All that darned snow.
White stuff is supposed to be the icing atop our Christmas cake, according to that classic song. It sure was a gift for many local kids in mid-December, when several days of school were canceled.
But because of that, the Northeast Hazel Dell Neighborhood Association’s annual holiday party and gift giveaway got canceled, too. This great big bash, held every year for nearly two decades now at Sarah J. Anderson Elementary School, and attended by literally thousands of children, parents and volunteers, helps provide a merry Christmas for people who need some help with that. Sixty percent of students at Anderson qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
Along with food, games, music and visits with Santa, free Christmas goodies like books, sports balls, stuffed animals, wrapped presents and even free bicycles and Christmas trees have been central to the party.
The snowed-out 2016 party, originally set for Dec. 15, has been rescheduled for 6 p.m. Jan. 12 at its usual home at 2215 N.E. 104th St., off Highway 99. But is it really possible to play catch-up with such a date-specific occasion?
Backstopping Christmas
Hazel Dell sure will try.
“Our mission remains the same, which is to help the children and families in need in our area,” said longtime neighborhood activist Doug Ballou. “It’ll be more or less the same program — but we won’t have Santa, and we won’t have Christmas trees.”
What they will still have is gifts, games, food and fun. “The tradition is still in place. Every kid who comes in the door gets a gift,” Ballou said. “We have a whole storage locker full of gifts. Waste Connections has donated something like 100 bikes. We’re just warehousing everything until we can hold the event.”
Event co-chair Vicki Fitzsimmons showed off a locker at Salmon Creek Mini-Storage that’s packed to the ceiling with toys and presents donated by local businesses and individuals — or purchased with donated dollars. Fitzsimmons said she hunts for toy bargains all year long.
This year, organizers also meant to distribute 50 food boxes to really hungry families. Some of those boxes did find takers through the school, Fitzsimmons said; others went to the nearest food pantry in the area, the SixEight Church on Northeast Ninth Avenue.
Principal Katie Arkoosh said she hasn’t heard of anybody’s Christmas getting ruined by the party cancellation. There are other sources of charity for needy kids, she said. But she sure did field queries from families asking about the rescheduled date.
Bud’s baby
More than severe weather has spelled changes for Hazel Dell’s huge annual holiday party (which has acquired the name “Youth Holiday Giving Event”). Some significant losses have hit the core Northeast Hazel Dell Neighborhood Association family recently.
For one thing, Mark DeLacy, who dressed up as Santa Claus and welcomed thousands of children onto his lap across years of these holiday parties, died in summer 2016. He is missed, Ballou said — but the fact is, there’s no shortage of volunteer Santas in this world.
The party has even outlived its creator. Bud Van Cleve, the so-called “mayor of Hazel Dell” and founder of what was nicknamed Bud’s Party, died at age 84 in November 2014. He was a child of poverty, according to his wife, Sherry, and the charitable holiday party grew directly out of that experience.
“That was his baby,” Sherry Van Cleve said. “He started it with money out of his own pocket.”
That’s also why giving away fresh fruit has been an important part of the tradition, Ballou added: because healthy, tasty treats like oranges were such a rarity for Van Cleve when he was a kid.
“He’d always say, these kids aren’t getting enough fruit,” Ballou said.
The first round of donated fruit from the canceled December party went to the Clark County Food Bank, Ballou said. But never fear, lots more fruit — donated by numerous local grocers — is in store for Thursday night.
