On Saturday morning, an airplane containing dozens of boxes of sensitive cargo is expected to touch down in Berrien County, with crews from Cass, Berrien and Van Buren counties eagerly awaiting its contents — gifts upon gifts for local children.

For the first time ever, the Cass County Department of Human Services is participating in Operation Good Cheer, a program dedicated to purchasing and delivering Christmas gifts to children in foster care throughout Michigan. More than 350 gifts for Cass County children is expected to be delivered Saturday, which will be handed out a DHS sponsored holiday party later this month, said Kristen Chism, the education planner with the agency.

Operation Good Cheer works by having people donate toys, books and other holiday gifts for children they sponsor, from all over the state. This year, 5,248 children will be receiving gifts through these anonymous donations, according to the organization’s Facebook page.

“It’s an amazing thing,” Chism said. “We [Cass DHS] can get our kids something on a small scale, but a private donor gave them something even nicer, and give them more than one gift.”

The local agency decided to participate in this year, after seeing the success with the program had in Berrien and Van Buren, Chism said. Around 25 to 30 volunteers will be helping to collect the gifts delivered by plane on Saturday.

Though DHS gives out gifts to local foster children every Christmas, Operation Good Cheer not only ensures that the children get even more this year, but that people they’ve never even met are thinking of them, Chism said.

“The holidays are tough for a lot of these kids because they’re not living at home, so anything to make them feel more cheery during the holidays helps out a lot,” Chism said.