Martha Crockroft can’t say for sure, but she’s guessing she’s wrapped more than 200 donated presents a year for 15 or so years, so the number of kids tearing the paper off gifts on Christmas morning she’s handled is, well, a lot.
She was wrapping a coat for a young child at mid-morning Saturday in the community room at the St. Vincent de Paul Juneau complex on Teal Street, surrounded by hundreds of items still to be wrapped and picked up by families as part of the organization’s annual Adopt-A-Family Christmas Gift Program.
Stacked throughout the room were gifts ranging from video games to Matchbook planes (and, yes, probably some cars) to a vintage Princess Diana doll with authenticity documents awaiting decisions about which youths would be good matches for such gifts. While many of the items were timeless classics, Crockroft said both the wish lists and items donated have changed notably during her many years participating in the program.