Annual Gift Wrapping to Benefit 4 Year-Old with Heart Disease

Every Christmas, groups of volunteers gather at Red’s Bar for a gift-wrapping fundraiser, and this year the recipient is a four year-old child with congenital heart disease.

Laurie Clark spoke with KGVO News about the effort that began on Thursday and continues through Christmas Eve.

“We have a benefit at Red’s Bar where we have volunteers to wrap presents,” said Clark. “People can just bring in their unwrapped presents and we wrap them and whatever you want to donate to little Torin Hanson would be great.”

Clark explained why Torin is this year’s recipient of the gift wrapping donations.

“Torin was born with some medical issues with his heart,” she said. “He’s been through numerous surgeries and he requires ongoing monitoring. He’s just a little firecracker that loves his brother and sister and we just wanted to give him a little hand up for the holidays.”

Clark explained the process that has been going on for the last fifteen years.

“If you have presents to wrap you can just bring them down,” she said. “We’re at Red’s every day from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. until Christmas Eve, and then we’re only there till 6:00 p.m. If you want to continue shopping you can pick up your wrapped presents or you can wait for them and we’ll have them done for you. We have numerous volunteer groups, like ATG who are volunteering today (Friday) and then 9-1-1 is sending a volunteer group down to wrap.”

Clark said even if you don’t have presents that need wrapping you’re still welcome to come in and enter to win prize baskets from various businesses at five dollars each and all the proceeds go to help defray the medical expenses for Torin Hanson. The prize drawings will take place on Christmas Eve.