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Greensboro Police Department leads community gift-giving project

"Operation Yuletide" participants prepare to deliver gifts. Screenshot courtesy of Greensboro Police Department.

"Operation Yuletide" participants prepare to deliver gifts. Screenshot courtesy of Greensboro Police Department. 

Police and other Greensboro city employees have been unofficially deputized as elves this holiday season. 

Operation Yuletide is a community engagement effort to spread cheer to those who may be experiencing tough times over the holidays.  

Every year, members of the Greensboro Police Department encounter residents who have been impacted by serious crimes, accidents, or general misfortune. Operation Yuletide provides new clothing, toys, and other gifts to families that have been referred by the department.

While the program is spearheaded by the police department, other city units take part in “adopting” families and the elderly, taking them on gift-buying shopping expeditions. One senior home has been selected for a visit that includes gifts of household items.

According to a news release, more than 56 families and 50 older adults will benefit from Operation Yuletide this year.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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