West Seattle Rotary Club members and community volunteers will gather at the Starbucks Center early on Saturday morning, Dec. 4 to come to the aid of economically disadvantaged children from area elementary schools.

The program pairs a child with an adult and with the help of student volunteers everyone gets breakfast at the Mezza cafe in Starbucks Center.

Then then job shifts to determining the children's sizes for the shoes, coats and clothing they are to be given. Once ready, the "shopping spree" begins and warm winter coats, pants, tops or shirts and shoes are picked out within their budget.

Every year The Rotary Club of West Seattle alternates between all of the elementary schools in West Seattle. This year the participating schools are Arbor Heights Elementary, West Seattle Elementary, Schmitz Park Elementary, and Sanislo Elementary.

The children are chosen by family support workers who look for children who are in need. Each child is given a warm winter jacket and socks (prior to the shopping spree) and a gift certificate for Sears and coupled with a 10% discount the store provides they make the dollars stretch as far as possible to purchase clothing. The purchases made are clothing and shoes only.

Volunteers include people from JaK's Steakhouse, Seattle Lutheran High School students, Mercer Island High School students, Kappa Alpha Phi fraternity members, Foster High School students and many West Seattle Rotary Club members.

Once the shopping is done, the kids and volunteers head back to the Mezza Cafe on the 3rd floor for pizza, goodie bags, and a visit with Santa. Later everyone was handed sheets of holiday songs to sing during lunch.

The Rotary Club of West Seattle website states:

This project, perhaps more than any other identifies the Rotary Club of West Seattle. The project started from very humble beginnings in the late 1960's when a few Rotarians took several young people Christmas shopping for a few clothing items to a program that annually involves Rotarians sponsoring a shopping spree for 100 students. The day begins early as students arrive and have an opportunity to talk about the shopping plans. Individual students are matched with a Rotarian and they are off to shop.

The goal is to be sure that all kids have warm winter clothing, good footwear and appropriate clothing. After an exhilarating shopping spree, the children return to meet Santa, receive additional donations, have lunch, sign holiday songs and are finally transported back to their respective schools.

This project lead by Rotarians includes school administrators, counselors, teachers, and volunteers to be sure that it all happens as planned.

Sponsoring a child is easy, please click the donation link below to contribute to this wonderful Annual West Seattle Community event.

To make a donation, visit: Children's Holiday Shopping Spree Fund