Like the lightning speed of a horse, Klamath Early Childhood Center has taken off in its new location in Klamath Falls City Schools. It is only the first year KECC has been in its new building, 2450 Summers Lane, and took full advantage of its space Friday when it hosted one of its annual events for its students.
Early Childhood Intervention’s familiar Christmas event has children from the age of five and under have a chance to meet Santa Clause, receive a gift and a stuffed animal from him, along with riding in a horse carriage.
The event has been going on for what is believed to be 18 years. The Sunrise Rotary Club helped provide a gift and stuffed animal to the 90 children who came to the event.
“We are kind of picky. They have to be like new stuffed animals,” Sunrise Rotary Club representative Norm Holliday said.
Holliday and his fellow club members worked tirelessly to make sure every gift given to the children was one they would remember, and looked for gifts from Goodwill and throughout Rogue Valley. The 90 children that came to event were the most out of any previous year.
With a new building, ECL Director Dena Haudenshild and her staff, were able to make the event its own as, from the ceiling to the floor, a room was filled with Christmas decorations.
In previous years, the Klamath County Fairgrounds allowed ECI to host the event free of charge. Last year, at the Klamath Falls City Schools Central Office, students came to a drive-through event, which allowed them to see Santa Clause from inside their cars and receive a gift.
The Sunrise Rotary Club is able to make events possible after receiving donations at its annual Brats, Brews and Blues festival. Sunrise Rotary Club also helps benefit Camp Evergreen – a bereavement camp for children, along with helping sponsor Oregon Tech’s dental hygiene program, which provides dental services to elementary school students in Klamath Falls.
“One of rotary’s core values is service above self. There are some of us, in the community, who have especially been here for a while and believe in that pretty strongly,” Holliday said. “Whether it was our motto or not, we would not care. It is something we believe in. It helps keep us young.”
“I was at Goodwill and bought additional teddy bears they were holding for us and talking to this gal and she said ‘oh, my son went to early childhood intervention and he just graduated from there.’ It (ECI) touches the lives of so many. It is a pretty big deal. Hopefully, we are making these kids happy.”
The Southern Oregon Horse and Carriage Club brought five horses to the event Friday, with a total of three carriages, a jump from the lone horse that normally comes to the event.
SOHACC President Michael Wakefield took ECI students on his carriage to ride alongside his two Norwegian Fjord horses, Elke and Stolie.
According to Wakefield, a horse can hear 400 times greater than that of a human and can smell 200 times greater. Wakefield can speak softly to his horses and they still obey, even knowing several commands in Spanish.
“They can smell your fear with the adrenaline you produce,” Wakefield said.
Former SOHACC member, Bill Morris, was the first to bring his horses to the ECI event, and after he made it a routine, other club members followed. SOHACC members came from as far as Etna, Calif.
Sam Chandler has two of her children who have gone through and graduated at ECI. Chandler brought her youngest daughter to the event Friday. Chandler’s four-year-old daughter, Haven, recently graduated from the program.
For her two-year-old daughter, it was the first time she was able to meet Santa Claus.
“Dena, she is such a visionary person because we (ECI ) were spread all over but now we are all together under one roof,” Shelly Young, ECI Intake Coordinator said. “Judy Dunn, Breanna Clark, Kathy Graves, Donald Lawson and Stephanie Cole, from SOHACC, were all significant in the happenings of the day, along with Sunrise Rotary Club President, Theresa Silver.”
aguilar-floresj@kfalls.k12.or.us