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ELKINS -- The Randolph County Commission approved a funding request for the town of Mill Creek.
Several residents from Mill Creek attended the meeting, including Kathy Stalnaker, who gave an informational presentation to Commissioners David Kesling and Chris See.
"We are here today because we are wanting to provide our community a celebration during the holidays," said Stalnaker. "The town of Mill Creek has limited resources, but we provided the Fall Festival, which was solely done by donations from the community."
The Fall Festival was deemed a success as it drew 300 children and their parents to the event. Stalnaker said the city now wants to have a Christmas Celebration that focuses more on the less fortunate in the area.
"This year we are thinking about doing a holiday celebration where we provide a meal," she said. "We want to focus a lot on our elderly and the homeless people in the area. Those people need support during the holidays and our hope is that we can provide a meal, do some food boxes, and provide the children with Santa."
Stalnaker asked the commission if it would be willing to help with the purchase of food and other various items for the holiday celebration. She added that volunteers were already in place to help with the event, including several who wanted to play Santa Claus.
"We want to have Santa because some children have probably not had those opportunities," Stalnaker said. "We are wanting to distribute some food baskets to some people who may not be able to come to the celebration and get a meal that day. And if we have anything left over, we want to support the Blessing Box and Tyrand (Ministries) if they need any food items for their distribution center."
Stalnaker said she hopes having events like the planned Christmas celebration will encourage other people in the community to get more involved.
"We want to have a great celebration and hopefully bring our community more together," said Stalnaker. "We want to motivate some of the community members to be more active so that we can pursue bigger projects… We don't have enough community activity right now."
The event will be held at the Mill Creek Community Center, which has been seldom used, according to Stalnaker.
"We have a wonderful community center that we built many years ago that we haven't really utilized," she said. "We have started to utilize the community center a little more now and that's the location where the celebration will be. We are also wanting to have a parade during the event."
Kesling said he was glad to see several people in the community coming together to put on such an event.
"It takes one person to make something like this happen," Kesling said. "This is very much a worthwhile project in the county and you have our support."
Kesling and See voted to approve the funding request of $5,000 to help support the event. The money will be taken from the courthouse contractuals line item of the county budget.