ABOVE: Fairmont Elementary School Social Worker and Elf Shop Coordinator Amy Becker stands with the gifts donated for the event so far. Donations of items or cash can be brought in during school hours Monday through Friday, up to Dec. 15.

FAIRMONT – Fairmont Elementary School is seeing positive early signs for its Elf Shop program, but there is still plenty to do.

The school’s social worker and Elf Shop organizer Amy Becker said the program is for kids in kindergarten through second grade to pick out presents for anybody in their immediate family.

“They can pick out for mom, dad, brothers, sisters,” she said. “If there are family members that live outside of the household, like a parent that doesn’t live with them, they’re also able to get presents for those people.”

The program is one families must sign up for. The paperwork is sent home with them, and they have until Monday, Dec. 8, to complete it.

“Their parents choose if they want them to participate,” Becker said. “They fill out a form that includes who the family members are that they’re shopping for, ages of those family members. That way, the volunteers can help get them to the specific areas that they would need to be in for the shopping.”

Given the wide scope of who could receive gifts from the Elf Shop, Becker said what they look for in donations is all over the spectrum.

“Our gift ideas start all the way down, like infants and toddlers, all the way up to adults,” she said. “We generally say things that we do take new or gently used items. We do not take lotions or soaps.”

For youth benefitting from the Elf Shop, Becker said toys, stuffed animals and books generally go over very well. She said they get more donations for kids, and in other areas, they struggle to get enough.

“One area we often need extra gifts are men’s and teenage boy gifts,” she said. “Those are often things that we don’t get quite as many.”

Outside of gifts for individual people, Becker said they also accept family gifts like games, gift packs like hot cocoa sets and movie packages with popcorn.

Volunteer opportunities include setting up the Elf Shop on setup day, wrapping gifts and helping students write their names on them on shopping day, and assisting students who were unable to attend the original shopping day with their experience during the make-up day.

In donations and volunteering, Becker said they were experiencing a promising start to their Elf Shop campaign.

“We’re probably about three-fourths of the way of our slots being filled up,” she said. “We still have some open slots, we’re still looking for people. We’ve had a lot of donations that have come in. We haven’t sorted through all of those yet, but we have a place that we store them, and it’s a large amount that we’ll be able to go through, which is great.”

In addition to physical donations, Becker said the amount of cash donations has also been substantial. She said donating cash allows them to buy gifts when there are lacking donations for a specific demographic of people.

Overall, Becker said they’re on track with how they’ve fared in previous years, and are projecting all volunteer slots to be near full or full by setup day.

With this continued success, Becker said it has helped the spirit of giving in Fairmont.

“A lot of times the holidays can become more, ‘What am I getting?’ as opposed to, ‘What can I do for other people?’ This is an opportunity for kids to be able to give to someone else,” she said. “They do not pick out a gift for themselves. It’s only for their family members. Being able to really think about who their family members are and what they think they would enjoy.”

It’s not just the kids who get to experience the spirit of giving, but also the volunteers.

“They just really enjoy seeing that excitement from the kids and being able to help the kids with that spirit of giving,” Becker said. “Being able to help families that wouldn’t have as many Christmas gifts, it also helps the volunteers, that they’re able to make that happen.”

Donations must be brought to the Fairmont Elementary School Office by Monday, Dec. 15. Setup is from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Dec. 16, Shopping day is from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Dec. 17 and the Makeup day is from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Dec. 18.

For more information or to sign up to volunteer, visit the SignUpGenius at shorturl.at/KfUIr.