LAYTON -- Daneen Adams could not help but tear up when a young mother of two visited the Family Connection Center the week before Christmas, picking up gifts for her kids as part of the Sub4Santa program.
"She had to have been only 19 or 20, but when she saw the hats and scarves, she started crying," said Adams, the FCC's director of development.
"She said, 'I knew someone cared about me.' She just thought it was so thoughtful that someone had made hats and scarves and gloves."
Food banks all through the Top of Utah distribute food, clothing and toys before Christmas, thanks to generous donations from businesses and the community.
Adams said the FCC gave out 800 boxes of food during the week before Christmas. Each box, she said, normally feeds a family of five for three to five days.
Families got to pick out the food they wanted, kind of like a shopping experience, Adams said, adding that the FCC had enough food donations to provide food to all who came in.
"We came up a little short for Sub4Santa," Adams said. "We did reach our goal of helping 1,600 kids, but we did not give out as many gifts as we had hoped."
Children received hats, gloves, blankets and scarves -- all of which were made by local wards of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- as well as gifts.
In previous years, each child got to pick two toys, but the lack of toys this year meant some kids got only one.
Bountiful Food Pantry Director Lorna Koci said the pantry distributed 167,282 pounds of food from Dec. 1 to Dec. 25 and provided service to 1,137 families.
Included in that food total were 565 hams and turkeys given to 2,083 people.
The food pantry also helped 439 children with the Sub4Santa program.
Three hundred of those children were "adopted" by families that spent $60 to $100 per child and delivered the gifts to the child's home.
The remaining children had an evening event at the pantry, where they received blankets, stockings and multiple gifts that had been donated throughout the year.
"We couldn't have done it without our generous community," Koci said. "We're very appreciative of their generosity."
This Christmas, Catholic Community Services Joyce Hansen Hall Food Bank in Ogden helped 1,931 families, which is about 800 more families than were served last Christmas, said Wendy Hemmert, office manager.
"We ended up having a lot of food," Hemmert said. "It was all because of the donations we received that we were able to pull it off."
Adams said a woman who brought her children in for the Sub4Santa last year after losing her job returned this year, but with a $500 donation.
"She said, 'You don't know how much this helped me last year. I will give forever to Sub4Santa.' "
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