On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week, all three of the Lighthouse centers had two very special guests – Mr. and Mrs. Clause! Santa and Mrs. Clause made their first stop at the Warsaw location on Wednesday. Although only two of our kiddos were there to see him, the Warsaw staff made the most of it and had a wonderful Christmas party!

Next stop for Santa was our Park Place location. Although we have an older group of kids here they still very much enjoyed seeing and interacting with Mr. and Mrs. Clause. Families were welcome to partake and many of our kiddos brought their younger siblings so they could join in the Christmas games, goodies and crafts!

The last stop was the Edison Lakes Parkway location. Santa and Mrs. Clause sat in front of our fire place and each kiddo was able to get a picture with Santa, and even the staff too!

Although we had three separate Christmas celebrations, all three centers came together to donate Christmas gifts and Christmas dinner to two local families in need through St. Anythony’s Giving Tree Program! This is the second year we have done this and is a tradition we intend to continue here at Lighthouse.

This past weekend Lighthouse Autism Center held it’s third Annual Christmas Party. The theme for the party was holiday movies and the night was filled with good food, good, drink and fantastic company. With a little over 100 guests, it is incredible to see just how much Lighthouse has grown over the last year. The picture on the left is the all staff photo taken at the first Christmas party in 2012, and the photo on the right is this years Christmas party. Wow!

Staff were also asked to bring non-perishable food items as their “admission” to the party, and we collected over 100 items for Hope Ministries! It is so wonderful to see our staff wanting to give back to the community and we are truly blessed to have such a wonderful group who give back through their work all year long. Staff are able to see just how big of an impact they have on LAC families when they read the letters written by parents to staff during the holiday season. We concluded our Christmas party by asking several staff to read these letters. It was a wonderful way to end the evening, with staff being able to see just how much they change the lives of the families we serve.