A News Café readers might remember Happy Valley great-grandmother Vivian Say, who thought ahead this summer about what Christmas would be like for those displaced by the Carr Fire.
Say pondered what she could do to help – in fact, what she had done for a daughter and her family who lost their home in the 1999 Canyon Fire in Happy Valley. She could make Christmas stockings. She could make them with love.
Say reached out on Facebook to her quilting group, Quilting Perfectly Imperfect, to see if others would be interested in helping with such a project. They were.
“The response has been just incredible, from individuals sewing stockings to churches, quilt guilds, and students from Pioneer High School,” she said.
Say ended up with 1,699 stockings from volunteers in 16 states and France. She made 360 of them herself and did sewing each week at St. James Lutheran Church in Redding.
The stockings will be given away Saturday (Nov. 24) from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at KIXE, 603 Market St. in Redding. Participants are asked to bring proof of their loss and invited to pick up stockings for their entire family.
Each stocking contains a “little surprise” inside, she said. Those fillings were all donated; family, friends, and two foreign exchange students worked to fill the many stockings.
“Every single stocking is made with love,” Say said. “I just wanted to be able to give back in some small way. I want to give something that I hope will be meaningful and make their holiday just a little bit brighter.”
