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This year, Lockheed's Integrated Systems & Solutions employees in King of Prussia donated thousands of dollars that bought food, clothing and toys for 118 families, which included 416 children and 103 senior citizens.
Company employees Joe Autovino and Joan Levy started the program in 1987. Currently, Autovino and co-worker Gabrielle Shields run the annual charity event.
For nearly two weeks, volunteers from Lockheed's Network of Volunteer Associates, known as NOVA, collected and boxed Christmas presents at the company's facility across Mall Boulevard from the King of Prussia Plaza.
"We had 45 or 50 bicycles stored in our warehouse," Autovino said.
About 50 Lockheed volunteers helped organize donations, wrap gifts and load trucks.
Autovino said families would receive several boxes of goods that typically works out to two to four gifts per child, but packages also include essential household items.
"It could be 10 or 15 bags of groceries, depending on the size of the family," he said.
Beforehand, the program participants are given specifics about their "adopted" families, including their clothes sizes.
"(Lockheed) employees have a (specific) family to sponsor," he said.
All families were adopted by Dec. 2, Autovino said.
On Tuesday, NOVA volunteers loaded boxes in trucks and delivered the Christmas packages to the Children's Aid Society and the Senior Adult Activity Center, both in Norristown.
Connie Kehoe, who oversees "Friends Christmas" at Children's Aid Society, said the organization's conference room was filled with boxes.
"If I was standing on one side of the (conference) table, I wouldn't have been able to see someone on the other side," Kehoe said.
She called the yearly NOVA contributions "just amazing."
"There are at least six boxes per family," she said. "All brand-new clothing and all brand-new toys."
Gift cards are a favorite of teenagers, she said. Household items included sheets, pillowcases, dishes and silverware.
Children's Aid Society provides family-focused social services to abused, neglected and delinquent children and youth. Since its founding in 1885 as a foster placement and adoption agency, the organization has served counties in the Philadelphia region. Besides Norristown and its headquarters in Lansdale it is in the Logan, Olney and Frankford sections of Philadelphia.
The donated items are going to Philadelphia families this Christmas, Kehoe said.
"We kind of spread the wealth around," she said. "We spent the last two days delivering and having people pick up packages."
Lockheed's "Friends Christmas" supports 13 separate social-service agencies in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties.
The Delaware Valley chapter of NOVA supports more than 50 community projects. Lockheed Martin Company is a leading defense contractor.
Keith Phucas can be reached at kphucas@timesherald.com or 610-272-2500, ext. 211.
