GREAT FALLS — This year marked the sixth annual Operation Santa event in Great Falls. Every year, hundreds of volunteers spend their Christmas morning delivering free gifts to children around the city.
Laura Vukasin, one of the volunteers for Operation Santa, said, “We've got our horses. We've got the Black Eagle Volunteer Fire Department, and we're gonna head out to the…kind of the south and northwest side of Great Falls and deliver Christmas gifts.”
A parade, led by the Black Eagle Volunteer Fire Department, drove up and down the streets of the West Elementary School District, as volunteers like Tyler Lapierre helped give out age-appropriate gifts to the kids.
Lapierre said, “The elves are coming up this here. They'll say, ‘Hey, we need a present for an eight year old boy. Nine year old girl.’ We've got here all our presents sorted out here, and, we'll give them out to the elves to go take out to the kids.”
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Lapierre is one of many volunteers who has been a part of the event since the beginning. Another gift giver, Ron Dodd, has gotten everyone he knows involved.
Dodd said, “We volunteer here every year. We make our kids come. We get our friends from Malmstrom Air Force Base to come.”
The event takes a village, with around 150 to 200 volunteers and over 700 individually wrapped gifts. Not to mention it’s a Christmas surprise, for many, as community members don’t often know about it until the parade passes their front door.
Resident Brenda Harrison said, “We thought somebody’s house was on fire.”
Harrison, along with Taresa and Ward Burleigh, were about to sit down for their Christmas breakfast when they heard the sirens.
Harrison said, “I'm from a big city. And you don't get this, you know, in a in a big city, like, I've never seen a parade go right down the front of the house.”
The event brings Christmas cheer not only to those involved, but to everyone around.
Taresa Burleigh said, “It brought tears to my eyes almost, because I think we need more of that in this world, especially right now.”
