Elves for Ellisville: Small North Carolina Town Brings Joy to Devastated Mississippi Community

Small N.C. mountain community brings gifts to toyless town in hurricane ravaged Mississippi.

Brevard, NC (PRWEB) November 16, 2005 -- What started as one person's desire to help hurricane victims has blossomed into an entire town's desire to bring happiness back to the holidays for upstate Mississippi community. Sherri Walters, a resident of Brevard, North Carolina and a Red Cross volunteer, felt the universal tug to help mend the shattered lives of those left in the wake of Hurrican Katrina. She found herself working in the small town of Ellisville, Mississippi, one of the many hard hit but overlooked towns faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges. It was there she met the town's mayor, Tim Waldrup, and suggested that he call her town's mayor, Jimmy Harris of Brevard, North Carolina. "We offered to do whatever we could to help bring their town back together", Harris said. "We had extra items in inventory such as fax machines, desks and chairs that we thought could be of use to them."

What the town really needed was a little cheering up. "Mayor Waldrup explained that while the local government would make it, the families were facing extraordinarily high repair costs, and that for most families Christmas would be a new roof", Harris continued. That's when this small mountain town in North Carolina went into high gear. "This wasn't acceptable and so I approached the Rotary and other members of the community" Harris reported. "We decided to use our Christmas parade to collect toys from all the residents of Brevard and then deliver them to the children of Ellisville."

Harris has asked the town's residents to bring presents for boys, wrapped in blue, and girls, wrapped in pink, to put on the Rotary float as it passes along the parade route. All the town's gifts will then be loaded up on truck and driven by the mayor himself to the like-sized town in Mississippi. The parade is set for Saturday, December 3rd at 1 p.m. with residents from all over Transylvania County to be in attendance.

"Having a roof over your head is a wonderful blessing but not much of a Christmas present as far as kids are concerned", Harris said. "We're a small town too, and we know the challenges that these communities face."

So despite hurricanes and hardship, there just may be an elf or two heading to Ellisville this year, it just won't be in a sleigh.

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