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WEST POINT — In their 50 years of helping local people in need during the Christmas season, Cheryl Myers and her family have seen their share of Christmas miracles. She talked about some of them at last Thursday’s meeting of the West Point Rotary Club.

Working with volunteers, young married couple Hermon and Cheryl Myers started doing this in 1974. Helped by local churches, businesses and individuals, the Myers family collected donations and distributed them to people who needed them. The couple had a deep-seated belief that no one should go without gifts during the Christmas season. After a number of years of doing this out of their home in the Shawmut community, the Christian Service Center was organized in 1990. This 501(c)3 charitable organization has since had a central office and is a much better-known worthy cause. It also keeps the Myers family from having to store everything in their home. One year they returned home one night from an outing and their front door was blocked by a large sofa someone had donated. It would be a nice gift to someone, but it did present a problem for the family to get inside their home.

“We have always seen what we do as a ministry, and we have gotten to know so many good people through it,” Myers said. “We have been part of a number of Christmas miracles we will never forget. It has been a blessing for us.”

One such miracle took place back in the 1980s. “We were having a hard time finding where a family lived,” Myers said. “It was in a very remote location way down a dirt road. Hermon finally decided to leave a bag of toys hanging from a tree overlooking the road. It turned out that the children from that family found in and were convinced it had fallen out of Santa’s sleigh and was meant for them.”

In a roundabout way that was true.

Another Christmas season a family waited till the last minute to ask them for help. They especially wanted a coat for a little girl.

“We wanted to help them but didn’t think we had anything,” Myers said. “I looked all over to find something for them. I looked inside a big box I thought was empty and much to my surprise a little girl’s coat was in the bottom of that box. It was just the right size. We got it to them on Christmas Eve, and that little girl was so happy to get it.”

Myers will never forget one Christmas season she and Hermon were out and about and on a whim she told him to turn down a road they were unfamiliar with.

“It was getting close to Christmas, and it was sleeting and snowing at the time,” she said. “In that bad weather, I noticed a woman raking leaves in her yard. We stopped and talked to her and asked if they were going to be okay for Christmas.”

The woman was keeping her young grandchildren at the time because her daughter and son-in-law were in jail. She was heartbroken over it, especially at Christmas when she couldn’t do a lot for those children.

“We took them some food and some gifts, and they were appreciative of any kind of help they could get,” Myers said. “What really touched me about it all was the Christmas tree they had in the house. It wasn’t much, just the branch of a cedar tree in a bucket, but those boys did not want to let the season go by without celebrating the season in some way. With that in mind, I thought it was one of the most beautiful Christmas trees I had ever seen.”

“We left that house grateful on having helped people who needed help at Christmas,“ Myers said.

The Myers family has gone to homes on Christmas Eve night to bring food and presents.

“As long as we could make people happy we felt like it was something that needed to be done.” she said.

There have been Christmas seasons when they helped local families who had lost all their possessions in a fire.  In one such situation, a woman told Myers she didn’t think there was anyone out there who would help people they did not know.

“I didn’t know there was anybody who loved me that much,” she said.

Helping people at the last minute is something the Myers family has done many times over the past 50 years. “A lot of people won’t ask for help until the last minute,” Cheryl said. “It’s something we have dealt with for a long time and are prepared to keep doing.”

This will be the final Christmas season with Cheryl Myers as the director of the Christian Service Center. Her daughter, Christy Eddy, will be the new director at the start of the new year. Mom thinks she couldn’t have a better successor.

“Christy grew up in this,” she said. “She learned early in life what our organization does and what kind of support structure we have. Christy is so good with the paperwork that’s needed and is so good on a computer. I will still be involved. I guess I will be in the back a lot stocking the shelves. I just love being involved in what we do. We are active in helping more than 200 families right now. We need to continue doing that. We couldn’t do it without the support we get from our volunteers, local churches, businesses and individuals. There’s no way we could list them all, but we want each one of them to know how much we appreciate their support.”

She mentioned another one that happened several summers ago. “A man came in and told me that God had laid it on his heart to bring in a new skateboard as a gift for that Christmas,” Myers said. “He had a nice skateboard and everything that went with it such as a safety helmet, knee and elbow pads.”

The skateboard and safety items sat in the back until Christmas Eve. Someone came in at the last minute seeking it for a family member. The donation that had been made back in the summer was exactly what someone needed at the last minute.

Myers said that local agencies such as the Chambers County Department of Human Resources (DHR) and the Chambers County Circle of Care Center for Families are most helpful with getting them in touch with local families in need. There at times, too, when school teachers and doctors get them in contact with people who need help.

“When I get home at night and lay my head down after a long day, I want to know I did everything I could to help someone,” Myers said. “I know there are times when you do things for people who don’t need any help. When that happens, it’s on them. I just don’t want to not help those who truly need it.”

Located near the junction of FOP and Cusseta roads in the Huguley community, the Christian Service Center provides food, clothing, household and personal items along with other services needed by the less fortunate residents of Chambers County and the surrounding area.