About 300 people attended the fifth annual Arnold Kiwanis Club’s Giving and Light Fair, held Dec. 5 at the Fox C-6 Service Center in Arnold, said Kiwanis member Carole Yount.
Of those, about 100 were children, who filled the Service Center to collect Christmas giveaways, get their pictures taken with Santa and take part in other activities, Yount said.
“It was good. We were very satisfied,” she said.
This was the fifth time the Kiwanis Club has held the giving fair, after canceling it last year because of COVID-19.
The event had three new additions, including the Heroes for Kids nonprofit group based in Perryville whose members dress up as superheroes. At the event, they were available for photos with children and gave out candy canes, matchbox cars and puzzles.
The Missouri Freemasons were also new to the fair and registered children for the Missouri Child Identification Program, which allows parents to store photos, fingerprints and other information on a disk compatible with the Amber Alert system used when a child goes missing.
Yount said 16 children were registered for the program during the fair.
“(The Freemasons) said people need to realize the teenage group is most at risk at being abducted or running away,” she said. “I hope we get more kids there to participate in it next year. We will try to make it more appealing to parents of teenagers to come to the fair.”
An attendance prize raffle was held every 10 minutes throughout the four-hour event with multiple winners for each drawing.
“We gave away about 100 items that were donated,” Yount said.
Admission was free, though people were encouraged to bring an unwrapped toy or nonperishable food item to be donated to local families in need.
Yount said enough toys were collected to fill up a pickup bed. Prior to the event, St. Mark United Church of Christ in Arnold collected toys and donated them to the fair, Yount said.
She said some of the toys were donated to the Fox High School’s Letterman’s Club for its Christmas baskets program that provides local families in need with gifts for the holidays. The rest of the toys were donated to Hand ’n Hand Pregnancy Help Center in Barnhart.
She said the food collected also filled up a bed of a pickup and was donated to the Arnold Food Pantry and the Brenden’s Friday Backpacks program.
The Kiwanis Club held silent auctions for gift baskets and a raffle for a car-themed quilt. Proceeds from the auctions and raffle will be used to provide scholarships and other projects benefiting kids, Yount said.
In addition, 10 Chromebooks were raffled off at the event.
The Arnold Tourism Commission and area businesses provided funds for the Chromebooks, Yount said.
Children also received gloves, hats, socks and coats at the fair.
Lone Dell Elementary School donated the gloves and hats, and Rockport Height Elementary School donated the socks. The coats came from the Kiwanis Club and other organizations, Yount said.
Yount thanked members of the Seckman High School Key Club and Fox High School Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) for helping with the fair, and Kim Schumacher, the Fox district’s director of nursing, for decorating the Service Center.