When there's something RIGHT with our nation's kids

I read this Christmas story with tears welling up in my eyes:

Melissa Varpness, one of the winners in the Montevideo Kiwanis-sponsored $100 Project, was feeling down in recent weeks.

Her award-winning idea was to be a “Secret Santa” for Montevideo nursing home residents who may not have a family to give gifts to them.

She didn’t intend to use all of her $100 for gifts, but planned to use it as prize money for the home room at her Montevideo Middle School which donated the most items for the project.

But alas. The time was getting short and her project had only a smidgen of interest among the students.

And then — as so often happens at this time of year — the element of Christmas magic cut in.

Melissa and the home room teachers began talking up the project to the students and suddenly there were not dozens or even one hundred gifts donated, but 490!

On Saturday, the family and Melissa’s friends worked for over six hours to wrap all the presents. Each gift was handed out personally Tuesday morning to residents of Luther Haven Nursing Home and Copper Glen.

Each gift was hand-picked: a Gophers’ hat for Hank, dance music for Helen, a fleece throw for Randy. There was a long list. Each resident got one big gift and two smaller ones.

The day after the students had wrapped the gifts, last Sunday, Hampton and her husband, Dan, were directing the junior high choir at their church, Trinity Lutheran. Many of the choir members were students who had brought gifts for Melissa’s project. There was a very special meaning in the words they sang that day:

Give a gift to the little ones,

Give a gift to the poor,

Spend your time with the lonely ones,

That means so much more.

When you give a gift to the least of these,

It’s a birthday gift to me.

God bless each and every one of those students, their parents and their teachers. They are all definitely doing something right.