About 250 Bell County children had a brighter Christmas this holiday season, thanks to the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Youth Program at the Bell County JobSight at Bell-Whitley Community Action Agency (CAA) in Pineville.

On two consecutive days in late December, WIA staffers accompanied Santa Claus to elementary schools in Middlesboro and Pineville to distribute presents to children who were missed by other charitable programs, according to Janet Jackson, a WIA Case Manager at the Bell County JobSight.

The hundreds of new toys given away had been donated through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Nashville district headquarters, under the coordination of Corps Area Engineer J.C. McDaniels. McDaniels’ daughter, Katie, is a WIA case manager at the Bell County JobSight. McDaniels said the toys are collected throughout the year at the Corps’ offices for distribution at charitable events like the one organized by the WIA Youth Program.

Many of the gifts were wrapped by participants in the WIA Youth Program, which is administered by Bell-Whitley CAA under contract with the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. One participant, Tasia Rader, even donned red and green elfin garb and assisted Santa in sorting and handing out presents to the roughly 130 children who crowded into the Pineville Elementary School cafeteria for the Christmas event. Another youth program participant, Sarah Evans, had performed the same task for the approximately 70 children who atttended the Middlesboro Elementary School event the day prior.

The remainder of the gifts were distributed to children at area headstart programs, Katie McDaniels said. Other WIA staffers involved with the present-distibution events included Gail Matthews, Celena Rader, Beverly Smith, Amy Idol and Mark Mason, as well as youth program Director Rudelle Green, Bell-Whitley CAA Executive Director Peggy Capps, and Kentucky Department for Employment Services representative Angela Roark.