Volunteers and donors are hard at work all this week at The Inn of the Good Shepherd to ensure 1,200 local children have toys under the tree Christmas morning.
The Adopt-a-Family program is providing 540 families with toys from the kids' wish lists, purchased and brought to the Inn in black garbage bags so that the kids won't see what they are getting.
The gifts are unwrapped at the time of pickup so parents can take part in the joy of wrapping their own children's gifts.
"You see the Christmas spirit in the people dropping off the gifts," said Sherri Crowley, the Inn's board chair. "And when the parents arrive to pick up the bags, you hear, 'Oh my God, we're going to have a Christmas this year.'"
Families who access the Inn's food bank and soup kitchen, as well as other agencies, sign up for the program.
"The dream is that no child goes without on Christmas morning," said volunteer co-ordinator Lynn Le Faive.