In an effort to spread some holiday cheer, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1925 Auxiliary in Seymour held a Christmas dinner Tuesday evening for people staying at the Anchor House family shelters.

“We were wanting to do something for the community and we figure the folks at Anchor House don’t have a home, so we’ll give them a good Christmas,” Rennie Pershing, auxiliary member said. “We’ll have presents for the kids and serve a good meal.”

The mission of the VFW Auxiliary is to improve the lives of veterans, service members and their families and the community.

“Christmas is about the children and these don’t have what everybody else has so we’ve got presents for them,” member Debbie Carpenter said. “Santa will be stopping by too and that’s a surprise.”

Behind a curtain, there were tables stacked up with wrapped presents, one side for girls and the other side for the boys. Another table held bags of fruit that was going to be sent back to both Anchor House locations.

About 50 people came to the event and were served turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, vegetables and more in a buffet style line and there were festive red and green iced cupcakes, too.

“Seymour Community Schools Corporation was nice enough to let us use a school bus to pick everyone up and then take them back afterward,” Pershing said. “We’ll pay the bus driver, but the school system helped us with that.”

One of the members who served was Niki Minton. She said one little boy came back up to ask for more mashed potatoes because he ‘really liked those tators.’

Auxiliary member and Department of Indiana Guard, Barb Barger, said this is the first year for the dinner and it could be the start of an annual event, but they’ll have to wait and see how things go.

The purpose of the event was to bring hope to those experiencing homelessness in the community, auxiliary president Jeff Pershing said.

“We chose Anchor House for this event because they’re homeless people and they have children and we’re trying to bring the kids a bit of joy for Christmas,” Pershing said. “They may not have much else for Christmas.”

He said it will be up to next year’s president as to whether or not they do it again, but many organization members hope they will.

There were some fun activities to entertain the kids while they waited on the food to be served and then after the meal was over, Pershing called all of the children up front to sit on the floor and sing “Here Comes Santa Claus,” during which Santa walked in the door and received a rousing cheer from the smiling kids.

The children then lined up to sit on Santa’s lap, had their picture taken with him and then he gave each one a goodie bag. The auxiliary members handed out gifts and fruit to all of the kids, too.

Amanda Schrader, case manager for Anchor House, said she thought what the auxiliary group was doing was amazing because a lot of times the clients don’t get hot meals.

“The families that are coming from the Vine Street location have kitchens, but the families coming from Dupont Drive only have microwaves,” Schrader said. “So I think this is something that’s just amazing they’re doing for the clients.”

Schrader was in on the secret that Santa was stopping by to surprise the kids and if it weren’t for this Christmas event, they might not have an opportunity to get their photos with Santa, she said.

“They are getting a nice nutritious meal, too, and I think it’s great that the Seymour School system allowed them a bus to pick them all up,” she said. “I would’ve never been able to drive all of them over here.”

Schrader also said she thought it was great how the community was coming together to do something special for the Anchor House clients.

For information the auxiliary, visit to the vfwauxiliary.org website.

Anchor House Family Assistance and pantry is located at 250 S. Vine St., in Seymour while the Anchor House East Overnight Shelter is at 326 Dupont Drive, Seymour.

For information about Anchor House visit anchorhouseshelter.org or call 812-522-9308.