By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Two conference rooms in City Hall practically overflowed with perhaps hundreds of colorfully wrapped Christmas presents, gift bags, bicycles, nonperishable food and much, much more.
Sis Borden, an 81-year-old Sea Isle City resident who singlehandedly wrapped all of the packages, shook her head in amazement at the sheer number of gifts.
“It felt like a million,” she joked while trying to guess just how many presents she had wrapped.
Borden started wrapping before Thanksgiving to make sure all of the gifts would be ready in time for Mayor Leonard Desiderio’s annual Holiday Toy & Food Drive at Christmas.
On Friday morning, Borden and the rest of an army of volunteers that Desiderio affectionately calls his “elves” loaded the gifts and food into cargo vans and delivered them to Sea Isle families that are struggling financially around the holidays.
With its collection of multimillion-dollar beachfront homes, trendy boutiques and iconic restaurants and nightclubs, Sea Isle is mainly known as an upscale summer vacation retreat. However, there are some local families that need a helping hand during Christmas and other times of the year.
Desiderio said he realized that not all families in Sea Isle have enough food to put on the table or enough gifts to place under the tree for Christmas Day. He noted that was his inspiration for starting his community toy and food drive 31 years ago.
“What I realized, although Sea Isle City has many people who can afford toys and food, we also had many at the time that could not. I started to this to ensure that everyone would have something under the tree – children would have something under the tree and people would have food on the table if they needed it,” he said.
Truly a communitywide effort, the Mayor’s Holiday Toy & Food Drive involves local civic groups, charitable organizations, businesses and residents. Thousands of dollars in donations are made, including toys and other Christmas presents, food and supermarket gift cards, Desiderio pointed out.
“It’s a great, great event,” Desiderio said. “In 31 years, it gets larger and larger. I can’t thank everyone enough for the generosity, because each year we get another person that wants to donate, another person that helps us. It’s great because we put smiles on everyone’s faces.”
“The entire community comes out for this event,” he continued. “It’s an event that has proven results. We’ve delivered, and we’ve done it, and done it and done it again. We’ve perfected it, the way we do it. It’s heartwarming to see how excited the people are when we deliver toys and food to their house.”
Pattiann Ponichtera, the mayor’s assistant, organizes the toy and food drive each year. She said this year’s drive benefited 14 local families, including 33 children.
“It puts the giving back into Christmas – the true spirit of Christmas,” Ponichtera said.
The city keeps the names of the families anonymous to protect their privacy. This year, the families received gifts ranging from frozen turkeys and canned goods to stuffed animals and 10 bicycles.
The community’s generosity during the toy and food drive is reflected by people like Sis Borden, who has been wrapping all of the gifts by herself for the last 11 years.
Borden credits her late father, Jim Harris, and his spirit of volunteerism for inspiring her to help out with the toy and food drive.
“It all started with my father. He was a volunteer,” Borden said while becoming emotional.
Although all of the volunteers are collectively known as the mayor’s elves, Borden holds the title of the “chief elf.”
“That’s the No. 1 elf in the land,” Desiderio said of Borden after the two exchanged high-fives.
