For the eighth straight year, Norwescap has been delivering a lot of holiday gifts – and smiles – to children. 

Norwescap wrapped up its eighth annual holiday gift program in December by bringing the joy of the season to 200 families, primarily from Warren County.

Norwescap initially established “Partners In Joy” to provide gifts to families in need during the holidays. Sporting a new name, “Festive Holiday Cheer” is still based out of Norwescap’s Traditions Family Success Center in Phillipsburg.

Over the past two years, there has been an increased need for assistance, according to Norwescap. Participants (sponsors) in the Festive Holiday Cheer program choose to adopt a family (or more) or select “Joy Tags” each representing one gift from a child’s wish list.

Gift collection began in early November and ran through December 15. Many donors dropped off gifts at the Family Success Center, while others delivered them directly to the families they sponsored.

Making it a true community effort, more than 40 groups/companies, including AM Best, First Baptist Church in Phillipsburg, First Baptist Church in Flemington, IRCO Federal Credit Union, Financial Resources Federal Credit Union, St. Luke’s Orthopedic, Keller Williams Realty in Clinton, First Baptist Church in Alpha, and M&M Mars, along with individual donors, contributed to the success of 2021’s Festive Holiday Cheer program.

Latiesha Carter, Director of Norwescap’s Traditions Family Success Center, noted that “many of the parents we serve struggle at this time of year. They want to make the holidays special for their children, but they just cannot stretch their funds far enough. The Festive Holiday Cheer program invites members of our community to extend the spirit of giving to those families so they too can experience the magic of the holidays.”

Pastor Tim Pyne from First Baptist Church in Phillipsburg, a program partner for the second year, added that his congregation “loves this simple but profound way to love our community.”

Originally established in 1965 to serve the low-income population of Hunterdon, Sussex and Warren counties, Norwescap has evolved into a multi-million dollar nonprofit organization providing services to over 30,000 individuals annually in Hunterdon, Warren, Morris, Somerset and Sussex counties. Its comprehensive array of services includes programs in education, employment, financial empowerment, health and nutrition, housing and community development, and volunteerism and civic engagement. For more information about Norwescap, visit www.norwescap.org.

In photo at top, Latiesha Carter, Director of Norwescap’s Traditions Family Success Center, on left, gets a helping hand loading up gifts from Jennifer Warta from Keller Williams. In the photo above, The Owl’s Nest Childcare Center in Blairstown stepped up to the plate bigtime and collected more than 60 gifts for children in the Norwescap community.