Santa Arrives in Gering!

Friday, November 27th was special in Downtown Gering, NE. Santa arrived at Santa Village!! At the end of the Holiday Parade, there was Santa, Mrs. Claus and two very helpful elves to greet the children at Santa Village in front of the Civic Center.

It was quite an event with hundreds of children and their parents waiting for his arrival. There were carolers, thanks to Gering Zion Church, hot chocolate, and cookies thanks to the Gering Bakery. Several members of the merchants were helping pass out the goodies.

Santa Village consists of Santa Workshop, Valley Bank, a Merchants building, a School, a Church (replica of Gering Zion), an igloo (one of the favorites, a police station, and a dog house! They are in the northeast corner of the Civic Center Parking lot.

Santa will be there the next three Saturday's before Christmas from 10am until 1pm. A great opportunity for parents to take their children's picture of Santa. If you are able, the merchants do accept donations to help keep the village going year after year.

On December 5th, many activities will be happening in Gering! The North Platte Valley Museum opens their Christmas trees for judging, the Farm & Ranch Museum will have their High Plains Christmas celebrations including collecting letters to be delivered to Santa at Santa's Village by Pony Express!!

Here are more pictures from Friday night. Please stop by downtown Gering on Saturday and take everything in!!

A Generous Community

With all the bad news one hears, we tend to forget what a great community we live in.

Since it is Thankgiving week we need to take a moment out of our busy lives, and remember that the many things we have to be thankful for. This past weekend, KNEB and Panhandle Coop teamed up to help the CAPWN Food Pantry. We did live remotes from Plaza Foods on Friday night, where KNEB had their Monsanto Silverado Pick up parked out front. We then had a Husker Tail Gate Party on Saturday. We collected food for a total of 9 hours.

In those nine hours, we filled the box of their pick up and collected over $600 in cash. The cash will be used to apply for a $500 matching grant from Land O' Lakes Foundation.

Today, Mayors Meininger and Greenwalt and I signed a proclamation commemorating the 25th Anniversary of "Thanksgiving in the Valley" which will be held again at the Guadalupe Center on Thanksgiving Day from 11am-1pm. Last year over 800 meals were served, with half of those being delivered to the home bound. I worked at KNEB when a man by the name of Rich Berry started this project and Kevin Mooney has kept it going all of these years!!! Hundreds of volunteers help put this on and many businesses and organizations donate money to buy the food. It truly is a blessing for our enitre community.

Times are tough right now, but it does your heart good to know the community you live care for its own. If you would like to volunteer for "Thanksgiving in the Valley" contact Jill Allen at the Scotts Bluff County Volunteer Center, 308-632-3736. By the way, Jill can also tell you how to volunteer on an ongoing basis, with one of their many programs.

Have a very blessed and thankful Thanksgiving!

Making the USDA Blog

A few weeks ago I wrote about the partnership with Magnolia homes, the City of Gering, TCD, USDA, and local banks. Well we were also on the USDA Blog. Here is the link: http://www.usda.gov/blog/usda/entry/recovery_act_funds_provide_jobs