The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley
Two members from local Boy Scout Troop 66 load Christmas food baskets into a car last weekend during a distribution event at the H.W. Daniels American Legion. Post 29 handed out 56 baskets to families during the event.

ELKINS — H.W. Daniels American Legion hosted a pair of special holiday events last weekend, beginning with its annual Christmas food basket distribution.

Each year Post 29 hands food supplies to families so that they may have a good dinner on Christmas day. After only handing out 27 baskets in 2023, the request grew this year for the American Legion.

“We had originally thought that we were going to do 70 baskets, but there was a small miscommunication and we ended up handing out only 56, which is still really good,” said American Legion Post 29 Adjutant Mike Cardinal. “We had three extra large families, 16 medium families, and 33 small families that we gave baskets to. We had the normal rush in the morning when we started out and people kept showing up throughout the morning.”

Typically each basket consists of a turkey, a five pound bag of potatoes, three pounds of apples, three pounds of onions, a loaf of bread, two boxes of stuffing, peas, carrots, yams, beans, and cranberry sauce. However, there was a hiccup when it came to getting the turkeys for the basket this year, according to Cardinal.

“They had a power outage at Walmart where I had ordered the turkeys from and they threw everything out,” said Cardinal. “So there were no turkeys this year for families to take home in their baskets. But we gave them $20 instead so that they could go and get the protein of their choice…I typed up a little thing explaining why we couldn’t get the turkeys this year and everyone accepted it with no problem. And the majority of them said the magic words — thank you.”

Those chosen for Christmas food baskets were selected after filling out an application at the American Legion. Cardinal has been heading the Christmas basket program for the past 15 years and each year he requests assistance from Boy Scout Troop 66, who helps separate all the food, put the items in baskets, and load into cars.

“Troop 66 did a great job helping us out again this year,” said Cardinal. “I have no complaints on the scouts’ part, they do what we ask them to do every year and we appreciate their help. They are a good group of kids. They are very friendly and they ask questions and want to learn.”

The food distribution event, which ran from 8 a.m. until noon, was followed by a National Wreaths Across America Day ceremony at the Little Arlington Cemetery.

“We had enough time after the food distribution to go out and put all the wreaths on the graves at Little Arlington,” said Cardinal. “We had 217 wreaths to put out and we had help doing that from the Boy Scouts, Buckhannon Civil Air Patrol, and Post 29 Legion Riders.”

Cardinal said a member from each military branch was represented during the ceremony, which also featured the HIghlanders, who played music when individual wreaths were being displayed. One wreath is also laid against the main flagpole of the cemetery to recognize POWs. 

“It was a nice little ceremony,” he said. “The ceremony is held to remember, honor, and to teach that the freedoms we have are based on those guys and girls who have gone on before us.”