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CP Rail Holiday Train hauls load of Christmas spirit
(The following story by Chuck Sterling appeared on the Annandale Advocate website on December 8, 2009.)
ANNANDALE, Minn. — The Canadian Pacific Railway's Holiday Train is a win-win proposition for the Annandale area, the way food shelf president Ed Skomoroh sees it.
First of all, the traveling celebration helps put people here in the Christmas spirit, he said.
And second, it benefits the Annandale Area Community Food Shelf and the people who need its help, which is in greater demand than ever.
The Holiday Train will make its sixth visit to Annandale on Monday night, Dec. 14, when it stops here as part of its annual cross-country trek to raise food and money for local food shelves.
The train, lit up like a Christmas tree with hundreds of thousands of energy-efficient LED lights, is scheduled to pull up to the Oak Avenue rail crossing next to Annandale Memorial Park at 7:30 p.m., but the CPR advises spectators to arrive at least 15 minutes early.
Then a troupe of traveling entertainers will put on a lively half-hour presentation of Christmas music from a boxcar that's been converted into a stage.
This year's performers include country-rock-blues musicians Kaylen and Kelly Prescott and Adam Puddington as well as Wisconsin singer-songwriter Willy Porter.
The entertainment will be free, but everyone is asked to bring a nonperishable food item or cash donation for the Annandale food shelf.
Annandale Lions Club members will be there as they have been in previous years with a trailer to collect the donations.
The Baritone Quartet will also be back to make the occasion brighter by playing Christmas tunes until the train arrives.
And the Annandale Boy Scouts will again sell hot chocolate in the park to take the chill off the mid-December night.
This year's trip is the 10th for the U.S. Holiday Train, and it's stopped in Annandale every year since 2004.
"We're really fortunate that it does stop here and provides that pre-Christmas entertainment for the community," Skomoroh said. Not many communities have such an event.
"By having the train, I think it just brings the community together and puts everybody into the Christmas spirit."
Because the train isn't commercialized, it promotes "kind of an old-fashioned Christmas."
If Annandale didn't have the train, it would be a different pre-holiday season here, he said. And if its schedule ever omits Annandale, "I think people are truly going to be disappointed."
From the food shelf perspective, "it's really wonderful that we have this train stopping because it carries us through" until the agency's food and fund-raising campaign every March, he said.
Donations were down last year because the train arrived in the middle of a winter storm on a cold, nasty night.
An estimated 350 hardy people donated about 900 pounds of groceries, and the food shelf took in about $2,600, including $1,000 from the Canadian Pacific. But several hundred dollars more came in later from people who couldn't make it to the train.
"I would be really pleased if we can do as well as last year," Skomoroh said, because of the struggling economy.
The food shelf provides emergency food needs in the Annandale, South Haven and Maple Lake areas, and the demand for its services is greater than ever and growing, he said.
It distributed a record 19,000 pounds of food in November, and this year's total is expected to hit nearly 150,000 pounds, up from 120,000 for 2008.
Food shelf clients are "the working poor," Skomoroh said, people whose hours have been cut back or who are out of work because of hard economic times and can't make ends meet.
He pointed out that a cash donation goes farther than a food item because with $1 the food shelf can buy $6 worth of food at bargain prices from Second Harvest Heartland and the Emergency Foodshelf Network.
The Holiday Train will head west from Annandale to Eden Valley for another stop and show about 9:15 p.m.
It will wind up its U.S. run in Carpio, N.D., on Thursday, Dec. 17, after visiting more than 40 places in seven states.
Since 1999, holiday trains have generated more than $4 million and 2 million pounds of food donations in the United States and Canada, the railway says. "By having the train, I think it just brings the community together and puts everybody into the Christmas spirit."
Because the train isn't commercialized, it promotes "kind of an old-fashioned Christmas."
If Annandale didn't have the train, it would be a different pre-holiday season here, he said. And if its schedule ever omits Annandale, "I think people are truly going to be disappointed."
From the food shelf perspective, "it's really wonderful that we have this train stopping because it carries us through" until the agency's food and fund-raising campaign every March, he said.
Donations were down last year because the train arrived in the middle of a winter storm on a cold, nasty night.
An estimated 350 hardy people donated about 900 pounds of groceries, and the food shelf took in about $2,600, including $1,000 from the Canadian Pacific. But several hundred dollars more came in later from people who couldn't make it to the train.
"I would be really pleased if we can do as well as last year," Skomoroh said, because of the struggling economy.
The food shelf provides emergency food needs in the Annandale, South Haven and Maple Lake areas, and the demand for its services is greater than ever and growing, he said.
It distributed a record 19,000 pounds of food in November, and this year's total is expected to hit nearly 150,000 pounds, up from 120,000 for 2008.
Food shelf clients are "the working poor," Skomoroh said, people whose hours have been cut back or who are out of work because of hard economic times and can't make ends meet.
He pointed out that a cash donation goes farther than a food item because with $1 the food shelf can buy $6 worth of food at bargain prices from Second Harvest Heartland and the Emergency Foodshelf Network.
The Holiday Train will head west from Annandale to Eden Valley for another stop and show about 9:15 p.m.
It will wind up its U.S. run in Carpio, N.D., on Thursday, Dec. 17, after visiting more than 40 places in seven states.
Since 1999, holiday trains have generated more than $4 million and 2 million pounds of food donations in the United States and Canada, the railway says.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
© 1997-2010 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen
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