INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis firefighters spent Saturday morning celebrating an early Christmas with 65 local children by eating breakfast, shopping for clothes and visiting Santa.
Every year, the Indianapolis Fire Department pairs a firefighter with a child in need of assistance to help them shop for warm cloths and new shoes for the winter as a part of its Clothe-A-Child program.
The morning started with a breakfast cooked by IFD with everyone at the Indianapolis Professional Firefighters Union Hall at 7 a.m.
After the breakfast, both children and their firefighter boarded buses to go to a JC Penney department store to do their shopping.
This year, about $15,000 was spent outfitting the children before they returned to the Union Hall to visit with Santa and open a gift.
The IFD Clothe-A-Child program is funded by donations through gifts and the Fill the Bell Program.
Here's how you can donate:
- Visit www.fillthebellifd.com to make a monetary donation.
- Donate directly to the Fill the Bell account at the Firefighters Credit Union – 726 Massachusetts Ave.
- Donate in-person at Castleton Square Mall, Dec. 7-23, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, inside in front of Macy's
Clothe-A-Child began in the 1940s as the Mile-O-Dimes campaign in conjunction with the Indianapolis Times newspaper. When the Times ceased publication in 1965, IFD established the Fill the Bell to Clothe-A-Child Program and has been used for over 58 years.