Volunteers needed as annual Community Christmas Store gets underway

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - The Catholic Action Center’s 27th annual Faith and Community Christmas Store is underway.

The store allows people to come and shop for new or gently used toys for free.

This year, the store is in a new location off of Centre Parkway. It’s the first time the store has been in-person since the pandemic started.

The Catholic Action Center is shuttling shoppers to the store where they hand in their tickets and then are able to shop for their loved ones.

Catholic Action Center Director Ginny Ramsey says the communities generosity makes this all possible.

“We didn’t know what would happen this year. After you stop and restart, and a lot of illness still going on, but we all know that we need to share in this joy of Christmas,” Ramsey said. “People who live in poverty, particularly, they live in poverty 365 days a year. But, at least on Christmas, for them to have a little joy.”

Ramsey says that they’ll be giving out about 1200 tickets for families this year. She says people will be shopping for about 7,500 children this year which means they need about 30,000 toys.

Volunteers from the Catholic Action Center will be accepting donations throughout the days and Ramsey says that ability to restock during the three-day event is going to be key.

“Everybody is going to get good things. We redo the inventory as we go, and that’s why we ask your viewers if they say, ‘Wait a minute! I’ve got that bike that nobody’s ridden in a long time.’ Just clean it up really quick and take it over. Then there will be a child riding that on Christmas morning,” Ramsey said.

The Faith and Community Christmas Store opened its doors at 9 a.m. Monday this morning and it’ll be going on through Wednesday.

You can come down to the Employment Solutions Center off of Centre Parkway, which is a new location, to get your ticket and then also to shop when it’s your time.

Ramsey says that they’re in need of more volunteers to help the shoppers. She says they’re looking for about 120 more volunteers over the next couple of days. You can find more information on how to volunteer here.

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