Donations are stacked in a room before being distributed to needy residents in the community at the Adopt A Family event Tuesday morning in Franklin.  

FRANKLIN — The St. Mary/Vermilion Community Action Head Start program held its annual ceremony Tuesday morning that included donating gifts to children and the elderly in the community. 

The 20th annual “Adopt A Family” program at Peter Pan Head Start Center with the intent to help local families during the holiday season. A long list of sponsors were on tap that helped the agency to provide gifts to those needing it in the St. Mary area. 

The event included young Head Start students singing a medley of Christmas songs to the audience of more than 100, as well as some of the staffers and board members of St. Mary/Vermilion CAA joining in with some jingles as well. 

“If that doesn’t get you into the holiday spirit, I don’t know what will,” CAA Director Almetra Franklin said during the event. 

Some of the sponsors for the gifts who were in attendance included Franklin Mayor Eugene Foulcard and Baldwin Mayor Donna Laceslin, who both spoke in the gymnasium of the building. 

“It’s a very spirited, moving program and I’m happy to be apart,” Foulcard said. 

Since its inception 20 years ago, the agency has distributed toys, clothes and food baskets to 1,100 Head Start families and elderly, according to a prepared statement.

It’s an event that brings the community together with the involvement of Head Start’s partners that include businesses, churches, sororities, fraternities, social groups and local officials.