“We are thrilled with the record-breaking distribution at this year’s grocery and toy giveaway event,” said AVTA Board Chairman Marvin Crist. “AVTA staff, volunteers from all over the Antelope Valley, officials from the city of Lancaster, city of Palmdale, community organizations, local unions, and churches, all joined together to distribute holiday joy to more than 2,000 needy families from our community.”
“Even the Paraclete High School basketball team showed up with toys to donate and stayed to help hand out meal supplies and turkeys,” Crist added. “All working together, AVTA’s event exceeded every previous year, handing out more than 2,100 turkeys, 1,100 holiday meal supply boxes, 2,400 city of Lancaster Shop Local gift cards, 145 bicycles, and more than 2,500 toys and gifts collected by the AVTA Stuff-a-Bus program.”
Local residents in need lined up as early as 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 17, outside the AVTA bus facility in Lancaster. While the lines were long — stretching back to Sierra Highway through traffic control cones managed by the city of Lancaster and sheriff’s deputies — the participants seemed happy and excited, even remarking on how fast the line moved once the gates opened, AVTA officials said.
The event was made possible through donations from AVTA, the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, Teamsters Local 848, Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Boosters, Waste Management, IBEW-NECA, Vallarta Supermarkets, the L.A. Regional Food Bank, the Salvation Army, Sygma Foods, Sysco Foods, and US Foods.
“I’d also like to thank the residents of the Antelope Valley that donate to Stuff-a-Bus each year and the Stuff-a-Bus sponsors, such as Duke Engineering, BYD Motors, WAVE/Ideanomics, Palmdale Elementary Teachers Association, MCI/New Flyer, RentSource, Complete Coach Works, Mission Bank, Vinsa Insurance Associates, OpSec Security, High Desert Medical Group, DP Commercial Brokerages, Bayshore Consulting Group, Avail Technologies, AVEDGE, Kaiser Permanente, the Weideman Group, and MV Transportation,” Crist said. “Our community’s generosity helped make Stuff-a-Bus a huge success again this year, breaking all AVTA’s previous records for toy collection.”
[Information via news release from the Antelope Valley Transit Authority.]
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Blessed Family says
I went through this event for the 1st time, I am truly thankful to all the wonderful people,places,businesses,volunteers etc that put so much of their time, hearts into this each year, it is absolutely amazing. Again I thank everyone involved. God Bless you all.