The Christmas spirit was alive and well in Snoqualmie Valley, thanks to the hard work and generous donations from citizens, community groups, businesses, schools, stores and churches.

The Snoqualmie Valley Kiwanis Club gives special thanks to the following for helping with its Giving Tree project:

• 45 businesses for setting up Giving Trees and collecting gifts. Superstars were Remax-Integrity, Zetec, and Spacelabs;

• Genie Industries for dedicating many employees to help throughout the event;

• Volunteers from Kiwanis, North Bend Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the community for distributing trees, collecting donations and helping families find and gift wrap gifts for their kids;

• Families who shopped and donated;

• Schoolchildren who collected toys;

• Girl Scouts and Umpqua Bank for collecting and donating coats;

• Frankie’s Pizza, for donating food for volunteers;

• Safeway for donating shopping carts to use at the event;

• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for hosting the distribution;

• Snoqualmie Valley Food Bank for providing a space to sign up shoppers; and

• Sallal Water for being a drop-off location for presents.

All of you helped make Christmas morning special for 540 underserved children in more than 200 Valley families.

Debby Peterman

Snoqualmie Valley Kiwanis