WEST SACRAMENTO, CA (MPG) - West Sac Kids Give Back (WSKGB) held their 8^th annual care packet assembly on Sunday, December 11, in the City Hall Galleria. Eight years ago, some children got bored during Christmas vacation, and their mothers decided to fix that. A group of five mothers, including Mayor Pro Tem Quirina Orozco, got their children together and gathered donations of personal hygiene supplies such as soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, socks, gloves, hats and scarves.

The children then assembled care packets into Ziplock bags. The care packets were taken to organizations around West Sacramento which assisted vulnerable people in our community, including the homeless. That first year, in 2015, the children assembled 50 care packets in their living rooms. Each year it has grown little by little. During the 2022 care pack assembly, over 1000 Packets were put together.

Helping to assemble these packets were families, including lots of children, City officials, firefighters, Police Chief Rob Strange, City councilmembers, employees of different organizations that will receive these packets, friends and family. Those who did most of the work were the kids.

After coming into the Galleria and getting tattooed at the station or their faces painted at the face painting station, taking a picture in the holiday photo booth, or enjoying a cookie, the crowd gathered around the stage for introductions and a short holiday dance performance by the West Sac Community Center Dancers.

Quirina was sure to let the crowd know that this year, the Community Center crochet club made over 1000 hats and scarves to include in the packets. They were beautifully done in all colors and styles.

The children lined up, grabbed gallon-sized Ziplock bags and hit up each station, dropping in each item until the packet was complete. They then dropped those bags onto a table at the end (where the air was squeezed out and the bag was closed) and got back in line to fill more packets. After the first couple of rounds, the kids had the system down and bags began to fill the tables in droves, making it hard for the adults at those tables to keep up with the pace. It took about an hour for the thousand plus bags to be assembled.

Once the packets were just about complete, there was a surprise visitor… Santa!

“Santa was so excited that kids would go out and do something for other people that he had to put them on his list. His nice list,” said Quirina. Santa showed up and kids flocked to see him, as the adults cleaned up the galleria.

“This was a wonderful event for West Sac Kids Give Back. It’s just beautiful to see our community come together and our kids be able to give some service to the community. You saw little people learn about how important that is, and these are kids giving back to other kids, to teens and youth who don’t have access to your essentials, which was amazing. It was also even more heartfelt because we were doing this for Mayor Pro Tem Quirina Orozco, and the one thing we could do to help her in her time of need that you could just pull together with the community to make West Sac Kids Give Back a success… she didn’t want the kids to suffer,” said Councilwoman Dawnté Early West.

Every year, around the holidays, West Sac Kids Give Back gather donations and assemble packets. If you have not yet been involved, and even if you have, please look for it next year! Service before self.