The Annual FIRM Christmas party was a great success on December 13 at FIRM! This event has been part of the FIRM calendar for 20 years and we were so excited to once again host nearly 500 people at our campus to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Refugee families from throughout Fresno were invited to come for pictures with Santa, enjoy cultural entertainment, free lunch, cookies, hot chocolate, bounce houses, a nativity play by refugee youth and much more!
We were also able to give almost 400 children toys for Christmas and for many of these children, this would be the only gift they would receive this year. The event was a perfect opportunity to share the love of Christ and the Gospel message was delivered in Hmong (Pastor Rick Xiong, Hmong Baptist Church), Laotian (Pastor John Bosavanh, University Presbyterian Church-Lao Congregation) and English (Zack Darrah, Executive Director, FIRM).
An event of this magnitude does not happen without many volunteers, donors and major community support. We are always overwhelmed with the passion and willingness to serve the refugee community by the extended FIRM family. We would like to thank the following partners for making this year’s Christmas event a great success:
- United Japanese Christian Church (Gifts for children, MANY volunteers, cookies and children crafts)
- Councilman Clint Olivier, District 7 (Paid for food and gifts for children)
- San Joaquin Fine Woodworkers Association (Amazing handmade gifts for children!)
- Fred Smith, Fresno First Baptist Church (Santa)
- Linda Bowman (Gifts for children, event volunteer)
- Dale and Lesa Taunton (Gifts for children, event volunteers)
- Slavic Baptist Church (Adult and youth choir performances)
- Tout Tou Bounthapanya and the Champa Dancers (Lao dance performance)
- Pastor Tom Sims, 4141 Ministries/Mid-Valley Southern Baptist Association (Bounce Houses, Popcorn Machine)
- The FIRM Staff Team for all of their hard work
- Matt & Jaime Strmiska, Katelyn Richardson, Jeremy Bullard, Shelli Darrah, Shannon Foster, Megan Jacobsen, William Andrews, Lauren Lara, Jaimy Lady, Julia Lady, Marcus Williamson, Alex Esquivel, Gina DeOrian, Jodie Ban, Mai Vang Lor, Pakou Vang and the many other volunteers that made this event happen!
We look forward to an even better event in 2015 as we celebrate the birth of Jesus at FIRM!