Saint Nicholas House Joins Gift Mission to Victims of Hurricane Helene
Gifts collected at Saint Nicholas House in Brookline, NH
Operation Sleigh Ride was formed in late 2024 as an effort to encourage families of children impacted by Hurricane Helene. To facilitate providing toys for 800 children, drop sites were set up all over the Northeast.
Saint Nicholas House, which describes itself as a house of hospitality and prayer, joined the efforts by choosing to have a community gift drop box on the front porch of their Brookline, NH house.
This partnership is in keeping with Saint Nicholas House’s identity: “Saint Nicholas House is offered as a free gift to our community. We believe that God treasures each one of us and loves us generously and freely, and desire that every child may know what it means to be deeply treasured and freely loved.” It also calls to mind Saint Nicholas himself, who famously hid coins in the socks of children whose families faced desperate situations.
Operation Sleigh Ride was formed by Josh Greene, the pastor of Agape Christian Fellowship in Fort Kent, located on Maine’s northernmost border. Greene heard about a North Carolina community providing a Christmas feast and he had the vision to bring a thousand gifts down from the North.
Which is exactly what he did! The event, hosted at a local college, featured games and activities for children. While the kids played, parents were able to enter classrooms-turned-shopping centers for various age groups where parents could select gifts for free and wrap them up right there.
Many churches, community centers, and individuals helped collect gifts across Maine and New Hampshire. Saint Nicholas House said they were “glad to have been a small part of this multi-state effort to give to these children.”
below: a trailer leaving Fort Kent, ME; just two of the rooms containing toys for children.