A melodic group of local volunteers visited several St. Charles Parish families in the Mimosa Park Elementary School District Thursday evening of last week, spreading Yuletide cheer and Christmas carols to a group of families dealing with various holiday season struggles.
“This is the first year we adopted the Christmas caroling project,” Angela Butler, Mimosa Park Elementary principal, explained. “Luling Elementary was the [school] that was usually going around doing the Christmas caroling project, but due to the mass construction going on Paul Maillard, they asked if we would adopt it and service the kids in our area this year due to us having more availability.”
Together with a group of students, community members, teachers and their families, Mimosa Park Elementary’s Christmas caroling group of around 40 local volunteers set out last week to bring Christmas cheer to five local area families. A sixth family visit was also planned, but a scheduling conflict prevented the group from visiting the last family.
Each of the Mimosa Park Elementary families were identified by an informal committee of Mimosa Park teachers and staff as being in need of a holiday pick-me-up.
“We got with our school counselor and some of our faculty and staff, and discussed some of our friends that were having difficult Christmas seasons at this time – whether it was due to a sick relative, or the loss of a parent or maybe just some dynamic changes in the home – where it wasn’t as Christmas cheery as it had been in the past,” Butler said.
Just as dusk began to fall on the evening of December 7 across St. Charles Parish, the multi-car caravan of Christmas carolers drove throughout the moonlit streets of Luling and Boutte. Together the volunteers made stops at each family’s home singing classic Christmas carols and delivering a teddy bear to each family. Butler said one of their volunteers capped off each stop with a thoughtful prayer for the family before departing on to the next home.
The event was sponsored in part by the St. Charles Parish office of Farm Bureau Insurance, with family teddy bear donations supplied by Vicky Bergeron, a member with nonprofit Teddy’s Cares.
“It was fabulous to see the amount of people that came to support us and our Mimosa families; it was just really heart touching,” Butler mentioned. “It just goes to show that we are a true community, especially with all that we’ve been through, and knowing that our families are continuing to struggle after COVID and Ida.”
While the caroling event is likely to be restarted again in 2024 for families of Luling Elementary once Paul Maillard Road work is completed, Butler said Mimosa Park’s event was so well received that she hopes to adopt the event as a permanent annual tradition for her school.
“I think it’s something that we’ll probably continue to do as the years go on, knowing that we could do something for our community and get out into the homes that are [in need] this time of year,” Butler said.
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