“This isn’t just something we do once a year,” Mark Eaton said Friday night as he put a canned ham and other food items into an oversized new plastic laundry basket. “While this is certainly special, our lodge is always doing something to help people.”

Eaton, a past exalted ruler of the Tri-City Elks on West Shore Road in Warwick, was speaking about Lodge No. 14’s annual Holiday Cheer Program that puts food on the table of needy families and toys for children in their homes.

Friday night, Eaton and Tri-City members filled those baskets with a variety of foods – and various health and hygiene products – and packaged dozens upon dozens of toys that Lodge 14 collected a week earlier during its annual Christmas Cheer Party.

With the Oak Hill Band supplying the music and Lodge 14 providing a rather hefty buffet dinner, people jammed into Tri-City’s downstairs room for an evening of fun, food, fellowship and – as Eaton repeated – “gift giving of the finest kind.”

“We don’t charge admission to the Christmas Cheer Party,” Eaton said. “All we ask is that people bring at least one non-perishable food item and a new, unwrapped toy.”

Although Eaton wasn’t quite sure if this year’s party set a record, he announced Friday night that “we collected over 350 toys, and all this food has turned this room into a supermarket.”

Likewise, because Lodge 14 is well respected for its ongoing community giving, Tri-City received a grant from the Elks National Foundation for the food portion of its Holiday Cheer Program.

Eaton also announced, “We are giving upwards of 60 complete food baskets to needy families this year and we’ll have toys, stuffed animals, games, you name it, for the children of those families.”

Sometime this week, Eaton and other selected Elks will personally deliver the food baskets and toys to needy families on a strictly confidential basis.

He also explained that Lodge 14 receives names of families in need from churches, schools and members who know of people who are struggling financially, especially at this time of year, and it is Tri-City’s hope that Christmas will be merry for those families.

“We deliver the baskets with respect to people’s privacy,” Eaton said. “It’s a great feeling to know we’ve made a difference in people’s lives. This is all part of the creed, Elks Care, Elks Share. And believe me, people at this lodge really care about their fellow man – and woman!”