By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Months of organizing and days of wrapping presents crescendoed to a two-hour conclusion at Southwestern Michigan College's Mathews Conference Center East from 6 to 8 Wednesday evening - the annual Cass County Children's Foster Care Christmas Party for an estimated 250 people.
Officer Susan Worley of Dowagiac Police Department and Tamela Phillips of the Family Independence Agency (FIA) looked like they were facing off for a snowball fight in forts made of gifts wrapped in a crazy quilt of colors and patterned papers.
Phillips' present pile was at one end of the room of tables with centerpieces of crayons for coloring where pizza and desserts would soon be gobbled up faster than Santa Claus sliding down a chimney.
Worley's wall made of 147 holiday hope chests for county foster care children awaited distribution at the other end of the banquet facility.
Her Girl Power! students wrapped all 147 hope chests - up from 109 in 2003 - after Pathfinders alternative education students volunteered their time to pack cartons ranging in size from shoeboxes to bigger boxes.
Major contributors for the police holiday hope chest project included: M. Allen Trucking, Cassopolis; City of Dowagiac employees; Dowagiac Area Federal Credit Union employees; Zeta Chi Sorority; Dowagiac Business and Professional Women's Club; The Smile Center; Cassopolis Dental; Dowagiac Union Schools employees; countless concerned Dowagiac citizens and, of course, Girl Power! and Pathfinders students.
Phillips' contributors, who also helped recognize foster care parents, included Lyons Industries, C. Wimberley (which came through with more than 60 gifts for the second year in a row), Shepard House Counseling, St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Dowagiac, Pokagon United Methodist Church, Creekside Baptist Church, United Presbyterian Church, United Missionary Society of Penn, Conner-Mayo AME Church, Bud Distributing, Community Grange in Sumnerville, NLS Inc., Cassopolis Dental, Broadway Dental Center, Rotary Club of Dowagiac, Kappa Beta Sorority, Laureate Beta Alpha, Beta Sigma Phi Sorority Theta Mu Chapter, Beta Gamma Upsilon Sorority Beta Mu Chapter, Xi Delta Mu, the Cass County court staff, Cass County FIA employees, Niles Girl Scouts, several private citizens and, from the Cass County Youth Council, a $1,000 grant.