By Amber Jurgensen | Associate Editor
The kindness in Anna Reitz’s eyes and the passion in her voice is unmistakable when she talks about the Kiwanis Club’s gift-giving charity, Christmas for an Angel.
The program involves gathering thousands of toys for hundreds of local children in need.
“These kids, if they didn’t get a gift from us or an agency like us, they wouldn’t get anything for Christmas,” Reitz said. “It’s needed in Plant City. We have many children who are in need.”
Reitz has been heading up the program for 10 years. She took it over from Robert Brown, who started the program in the late 1980s.
“Children were his No. 1 priority, and he saw the needs of children in the community,” Reitz said. “On Robert’s deathbed, I promised him I would do it until I couldn’t anymore.”
Since 1989, Christmas for an Angel has delivered toys to 19,161 children. Each year, 16 Plant City elementary schools send in lists from 30 anonymous students who are in need of a Christmas miracle. Many toys on the list are popular items, such as LEGOs, craft kits and Barbies. Three Head Start programs also participate in the program, and each girl from Steppin’ Stone Farm, a home for at-risk girls, receives a present, too.
But the program also reaches beyond schools and organizations. Reitz gets many calls from friends who know a family in need. Families also come to her for help. Reitz remembers one specific call made to her on Christmas Eve about a family with seven children that was living in an RV with barely any food and unemployed parents. She made some calls, gathered some toys and food and delivered them to the family.
“I accept toys until the very end,” Reitz says. “And I will find a place for them.”
Throughout the month, Reitz gathers the toys with the help of sponsors such as South Florida Baptist Hospital, Stingray Chevrolet, Sweetbay, Progressive Insurance and more.
On specific days, Reitz and her volunteers go shopping, driving big black trucks and vans to carry all the goods, driving security nuts, according to Reitz.
Volunteers will collect toys Dec. 9, at the Randy Larson Sports Complex, and they will partner with Black Heritage Celebration Inc. for the Santa Sled program at 2 p.m. Dec. 22, in Sam Cooper Park.
“It’s just one of those things that works out nicely,” Reitz says. “So many of those kids know they will have something under the tree and know that someone cares. This is the kind of thing that warms your heart, makes you cry, and you’ll do it again and again.”
Contact Amber Jurgensen at ajurgensen@plantcityobserver.com.
BY THE NUMBERS
19,161 — The number of children Christmas for an Angel has helped since its inception.
$452,939.11 — The dollar amount of all the presents donated since 1989.
6,481 — The number of Priority 1 children, ages 5 and under, who received gifts since the program’s inception.
16 — The number of elementary schools participating in Christmas for an Angel.
HOW TO HELP
To donate a present to Christmas for an Angel, take an ornament specifying the age, gender and wish list of a child from a Christmas tree in a participating store and return the gift, unwrapped, to the same tree.
Trees are located at:
• Sweetbay, 205 W. Alexander St.
• South Florida Baptist Hospital cafeteria, 301 N. Alexander St.
• Sunshine State Bank, 102 W. Baker St.