It’s fitting that the weather has teased Bradford with snow this week.
Along with the coming of cold nights is the coming of The Era’s Less Fortunate (ELF) Fund gift-giving season. The season will commence on Wednesday with the annual ELF Kick-Off Breakfast.
Starting at 8 a.m. Wednesday, employees of local businesses and organizations will gather at the First Presbyterian Church in Bradford to enjoy breakfast and to hear about the work of the ELF Fund in the community.
As this is the kick-off event, “Our goal is to get people into the holiday spirit,” said ELF President Ed Hayden.
For 34 years, the organization has matched volunteer Christmas gift buyers with needy local children. Eventually, senior citizens were added to the list of recipients. The organization continues to evolve, looking for new ways to help residents of the Bradford Area School District.
“It’s not just a holiday organization anymore,” said Hayden, who explained attendees at the breakfast will hear more about the organization’s new initiatives.
The group will also hear the story of one local family who worked with the community — along with The ELF Fund — to put on a Christmas celebration for 9-year-old Ethan Fox, who had been diagnosed with a Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma tumor. Ethan died two days after the party.
Ethan’s mother, Khia Pire, will be the guest speaker at Wednesday’s breakfast, said Hayden.
He hopes her story will help inspire Bradford residents to do their own part this holiday season to make sure their Bradford neighbors have something to open Christmas morning.
Hayden said that right now, there are 162 families — roughly 450 children — and 83 seniors signed up as recipients.
“That will equate to about 1,000 gifts so far this year,” he said.
And the number will grow before distribution day. In 2016, the ELF Fund helped 179 families and 90 seniors.
“We may exceed the number of families and seniors that we helped last year,” Hayden noted, though he does not anticipate a “drastic increase or decrease” in recipients from recent years.
Hayden is encouraged by the support the 2017 campaign has already received.
“We have had really good participation from the community, especially the businesses,” he said, explaining that the number of businesses willing to display tags and trees is up, as is the number of tags going out compared to last year’s breakfast.
There is a tag for clothing needs and a tag for toy wishes for each child, as well as one tag for each senior’s holiday wishes. Starting Wednesday, local businesses and organizations will display Christmas trees with tags that community members can use to purchase a gift.
Gifts will be collected Nov. 28-30 and Dec. 2, and distribution day will be Dec. 8.
Businesses and local artisans are also currently offering support by donating items to go up for bid at The ELF Fund’s annual auction fundraiser, the Festival of Trees, to be held Nov. 16 at The Bradford Club.
