The Jingle Bells Foundation is still receiving basket requests for families this holiday season.  Annually the non-profit delivers close to 900 food and toy baskets to families in a 35 mile radius of Alexandria.  The deadline to make a request is this upcoming Sunday, December 5th.  Last year, because of COVID-19, the requests were honored with grocery gift cards.  This year the foundation plans to go back to the traditional basket filled with enough food items for a large holiday meal and then some.  Depending on the size of the family, the organization will again create three different-sized food boxes to deliver.

Along with the food items comes the option to have toys delivered to children living in the household.

All of the deliveries will be made, with the help of community volunteers, on Sunday, December 12th.  This is open to the community/public beginning at 9am. The Jingle Bells Foundation and community volunteers will package up all the food baskets and start deliveries as they are ready. You can come to H. Boyd Nelson and help with the food basket “assembly line”, do deliveries, or both! We give you instructions once you arrive that Sunday morning.

For more details on any of these opportunities, please call and leave a voicemail at (320)-335-2488 or email Becky at beckylynn859@gmail.com

Jingle Bells Telethon

Proceeds to help fund the effort are being raised now, culminating with the Jingle Bells Telethon on Saturday, December 11th.  The 5-hour live televised event is open to the public and is being held at the Alexandria Area High School’s Performing Arts Center.  Local talent, consisting of more than 30 acts, will be the entertainment for the night.  No tickets are necessary for the program, beginning at 5:00pm, concluding at 10:00pm. as the event is free to the public.  The show will be hosted by Tim Urness, Chelsea Lee, Johnny Thill and Joe Korkowski.

The program will be shown on several television sources:

• Charter cable Channel 181
• Selective TV Channel 21.4
• Gardonville Channel 4
• Park Region Channel 1
• Runestone Telecom Channel 6
• Arvig Channel 14
• The Jingle Bells Foundation Website

Each year, in addition to the food and toy basket effort during the Christmas season, the Jingle Bells Foundation gives out thousands of dollars to help local food shelves.  Any additional funds raised during the telethon is used to aid people caught in an unforeseen hardship.  Funds are also used to help programs within local schools to assist youth in financial need (food, clothing, personal care items).  Jingle Bells Foundation President Chelsey Koopman says, “We are so grateful for the contributions this community has made toward this effort in the past and we look forward to their support in the future.  We hope to continue to make a difference in family’s lives for years to come.”