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Carbondale Police Community Christmas Store Opens For The 19th Year

The Carbondale Police Department and the Victim’s Advocates of Jackson County are making sure some children in Carbondale will have presents to open on Christmas.

For the last 19 years the Carbondale police department makes sure that some kids aren’t left out.

“A lot of these people wouldn’t necessarily be able to buy gifts for their children at Christmas because they need the essentials, food on the table, warm clothes.”

Sergeant Amber Ronketto opened the community Christmas store for two days this year and let select parents purchase toys for their children for a very low cost.

“We’ve been pretty consistent with two dollars per gift for the last few years.”

Roughly a third of the money spent on gifts came from donations and the rest was paid through the department’s general budget.

This year they had 125 kids on their list and were able to spend over $4000 on new toys for them.

Besides the toys every child also received a new coat from a coats for kids drive during saluki basketball games in November.

One of their biggest donors, walmart also helped with the coats.

“Wal-mart was generous enough to allow us to swap out some sizes so we had the sizes for all the kiddos we needed.”

All the money made form the Christmas is used the next year to buy presents again.

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