HIGH SPINGS ‒ Christmas is a time for joy and excitement as holiday traditions bring back warm memories as well as anticipation of what is to come. Children are especially excited as they await Christmas morning and the gifts they hope to receive. Christmas is also a time for giving and sharing, and thanks to the High Springs Police Department (HSPD) and its partners, less fortunate children enjoyed a merry Christmas.

Since 2008, HSPD has sponsored Operation Holiday Cheer. HSPD, along with help from the High Springs Fire Department (HSFD) and the City Parks and Recreation Department, have asked for donations of new toys, pajamas and books from the community so they can provide them to children in need. Several local businesses, the Rotary Club and the High Springs Community School have also been involved in the effort.

The school typically notifies the school resource officer of families that could use the help, and HSPD contacts the child's parents to get approval for a delivery and find out if there are other children in the house to add to the list. This also gives the police an opportunity to learn what the children want as they try to match the gifts to the children.

But like everything else in 2020, the pandemic affected how Operation Holiday Cheer would continue. For HSPD, it was never a question of canceling the event, only how to change it to make it safe for everyone.

This year, instead of individuals and organizations donating toys, the police department asked only for cash donations so the officers could purchase the toys themselves to guarantee they were sanitized and properly handled. And parents and children also received gift cards to purchase any items they needed, including food.

Cards were donated by both local and corporate merchants. Locally, Pepperonis, Dollar Tree and Winn-Dixie contributed cards. Other card sponsors included Walmart, Amazon, Old Navy and Gamespot. According to HSPD Chief Antione Sheppard, despite the hard economic times, the community gave more donations than in previous years, providing over $7,000 for the officers to buy gifts.

This year’s event was organized by HSPD Police Officer Jason Taylor and on the morning of Dec. 21, Taylor along with fellow HSPD officers and staff and members of the fire department, sprang into action. They left the police station in police cruiser with lights flashing and the City’s fire truck, going home to home, delivering gifts to 31 children in 12 families.

With COVID precautions in mind, all the officers were masked to provide safe interaction with the families. The group also included two administrative members of the department dressed in colorful inflated costumes representing Santa Claus and a Christmas tree. In addition to spreading holiday cheer, the costumes provided a contact barrier allowing the characters to have closer interaction with the children.

While the pandemic has changed many aspects of life in 2020, traditions continue and people find other ways to safely work around COVID-19. This year has been hard for many families, especially economically, and that makes Operation Holiday Cheer more important than ever to help those in need this holiday season.

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ALACHUA ‒ Visitors to the city of Alachua’s Main Street were in for a treat Saturday afternoon, Dec. 12. For the past 36 years the Alachua Chamber of Commerce has hosted the annual Christmas Parade through the downtown area. Each year local businesses, government departments, civic groups and churches sponsor floats to entertain the spectators and compete for prizes. Children anxiously awaited the parade for chance to see Santa Claus and collect the treats thrown from each decorated float or handed out by people walking alongside.

This year however, the world is different due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which is currently surging during the holidays. High Springs canceled its annual evening parade due to concerns about crowd size and ability to social distance, and instead residents had a parade of decorated cars driving around downtown High Springs.

Alachua moved forward with the afternoon parade as an important tradition for area children and to give them a sense of normalcy at Christmastime. All parade participants wore masks as did most of the spectators. While the event was smaller than previous years, both in crowd size and in number of floats and entries, the excitement was palpable among the crowd as they enjoyed the parade. Instead of the usual 35-40 floats, this year there were only 28, but the festivities, enthusiasm and spirit of Christmas celebration were ever present.

This year’s parade theme paid tribute to a throwback collection of classic toys. The parade historically starts with a police escort, and this year was no different. With lights flashing and sirens wailing motorcycle patrolmen led the parade, followed by police cars from Alachua and High Springs.

Families still lined the street in lawn chairs to watch the procession, although they were spread out in their family groups to help create social distancing. Following the police escort was a flag color guard consisting of three Marine veterans. Other members of the Marine Corps League of Veterans followed in two army jeeps outfitted with an American flag waving from a pole. Additional veterans walked along the sidelines handing out candy. City Mayor Gib Coerper followed them, waving at the crowd.

The parade's grand marshal, newly elected Alachua County Sheriff Clovis Watson, Jr., greeted the hometown crowd from a vintage convertible Mustang. The Santa Fe High School Raider Regiment provided the parade’s marching band and engaged the crowd with their holiday tunes.

The City of Alachua’s float, fashioned like a red radio flyer wagon, featured a display of giant-sized favorite children’s toys, including Legos, tinker toys, a barrel of monkeys, and Raggedy Anne. City Commissioners Shirley Green Brown and Dana Miller joined City employees on the colorful float.

Volunteers, walking alongside the floats, were dressed in Christmas attire or portrayed characters such as Santa's elves, and handed out candy to the children along the parade route. For the children, it was a magical time, seeing the colorful floats and costumed characters, along with free candy and gifts.

Other float sponsors included Mi Apa Restaurant, Shriners, Domino’s Pizza, Alachua 4H Club, MatchMaker Realty, All Stars Twirling Academy, Momentum Dance Academy, High Springs Playhouse, Santa Fe Babe Ruth Baseball team, Boy Scout Troop 88 and Pack 88 Cub and Tiger scouts.

As each float passed the judge’s stage at the intersection of 148^th Place and Main Street, parade MC's Ben Boukari, Jr., Mike DaRoza and Robert Bonetti announced the sponsor of each float, oftentimes pausing long enough to chat with the participants.

But the best was yet to come as the float everyone was waiting for arrived. Santa Claus waved to the children as he rode by perched on top of a firetruck. Excited youngsters responded by waving and calling out Santa's name to try and catch his attention.

At the conclusion of the festivities, the judges awarded first place to the Momentum Dance Arts float, which was decorated in a Barbie doll theme and featured dancers dressed as vintage Barbie dolls

ALACHUA ‒ On the evening of Dec. 3, the Amphitheater at Alachua’s Legacy Park hosted Dance Alive National Ballet's (DANB) production of “The Nutcracker” to an estimated crowd of 700 people. The amphitheater was part of the overall plan to make Legacy Park a central location for recreational and cultural activities.

The Gainesville based professional ballet company has been performing “The Nutcracker” for 54 years with over 200 touring performances and 30 school programs in the United States. Over the past four years it has also become a traditional show in Alachua as well.

Like many entertainment performances, the pandemic has hit the ballet industry hard. Most of DANB's scheduled performances for this winter and spring 2021 have been canceled or postponed due to limitations on venues and crowd size. But “The Nutcracker” is an important part of the company’s history, and some shows that could be performed either outdoors or in larger venues that would allow for audience social distancing remained. One of those was the Alachua performance of “The Nutcracker” as over 30 dancers performed a nearly two-hour show at the outdoor amphitheater under the stars.

In 1966 Mary Ellen Pofahl, a professional dancer and teacher, founded the DANB company and it has continued through the talents and efforts of her daughters, Judy Skinner and Kim Tuttle. The Dance Alive National Ballet has become the premier touring company in the Southeastern United States. It is actually two entities under the direction of the two sisters. Tuttle and Skinner are owners/directors of the Dance Alive National Ballet with Tuttle serving as Artistic Director and Skinner serving as Choreographer-in-Residence.

While “The Nutcracker” was the last performance of the year at the Legacy Park amphitheater, it demonstrated how successful this outdoor stage can be. And Legacy is fulfilling its namesake by providing space and creating an environment of entertainment and culture for the community provided by the City of Alachua, free of charge to those attending.

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ALACHUA ‒ Toys for Tots is a program familiar to many, but its beginnings may not be as well known. Toys for Tors is run by the United States Marine Corps Reserve. The program began in 1947 and was so successful in its inaugural year, that in 1948 Toys for Tots was launched as a national campaign. The program continued to grow nationally with Marine reservists, often in their dress blue uniforms. In order to make the program more efficient, the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation was created in 1991.

During October, November and December of each year, the Toys for Tots program collects new, unwrapped toys and distributes those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community. However, in 2020 with the pandemic, economic downturn and high unemployment, there is unprecedented need for the program.

“Because of the economic situation we have seen a 20 percent increase in requests for toys this year, and we have also seen a decrease in drop off of gifts in stores, especially the bigger chains. People are staying home due to pandemic, which has also led to more people doing online shopping instead of going to stores.” said Dennis Wait, Toys for Tots director of the Alachua and Tri County area.

“We have also seen an increase in individuals giving gifts and more people volunteering. We even had two young sisters, London and Layla Walker, ages seven and eight, raise $650 to buy toys for the annual drive,” Wait said. “We usually give out 20,000 toys to more than 3,000 kids throughout Alachua, Gilchrist, Dixie and Levy counties and we are still short of that mark at present, but next week is usually our biggest week so we are hoping the donations will rise.”

Wait served 20 years in the Marines, retiring as a major. He first became involved with Toys for Tots in Salt Lake City, Utah while still on active duty and pursuing a college degree in Sociology and Education. Upon retiring from the Marines, he became a teacher, relocating to the Gainesville area. He now teaches junior ROTC at Gainesville High School, during the day and from October to December spends much of his free time directing the local Toys for Tots program.

“We operate 100 percent on donations, service partners, and volunteers, all of which are comprised of local residents, businesses, and other organizations from within our community. But we also require help from the local community itself. We thrive solely on donations of toys, services and monetary gifts.

“Toys for Tots is a top-rated charity with over 97 percent of your monetary donations going to our mission of providing toys, books, and other gifts to less fortunate children,” Wait explained.

Monetary donations can be made online at the Toys for Tots local website: https://newberry-fl.toysfortots.org . The website also provides a list of local drop off sites for toy donations, a link to volunteer and the application for families to apply for assistance. Any toy donations should be new toys in the original package but unwrapped. Marine reservists and volunteers go to each drop off point to collect the toys.

For families in need of assistance for their children at Christmas, the website has an application form for them to fill out. “We have them apply so we can verify their address and need. We want to make sure that the toys go to kids that otherwise might not have a Christmas present,” Wait said. “Once we approve the application, the family is notified and can come to the new Alachua County Fairgrounds on Northwest 53^rd Avenue near the Humane Society for pick up on Dec. 19 and 20.”

Wait says that each child will get a primary gift, three smaller gifts and stocking stuffers. For families, there are board games or sports equipment to help create family interaction as well as presents for the kids.

For those that would like to donate a toy or funds to help make a child's Christmas better, all drop off points listed on the website will continue to collect toys until the Dec. 18 deadline.

“It’s all about bringing joy and happiness to kids and helping families share the holiday together,” Wait said.

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