Tricia and Bill from West Seattle’s Nucor might not have had white beards and red/white suits, but they were definitely doing Santa’s work at Southwest Youth and Family Services on Monday afternoon. They brought the first of two groups of donated bicycles to SWYFS — boys’ bikes on Monday, girls’ bikes coming today – and there was a big stack of Nucor-donated coats at the agency too. (Nucor also is presenting a big donation to the West Seattle Food Bank this afternoon.) They explained the donation drive:

Every month employees do a set number of Safety Observations – one employee observes another doing a task and then has a discussion on what the employee did that was safe and points out anything that was done that could potentially put themselves at risk. Nucor challenged its employees – watch out for each other more frequently and Nucor will make a donation to a local charity in efforts to make a child’s holiday a little brighter. For every 5 extra observations a brand new coat would be donated, and for every 15 extra observations a brand new bike would be donated.

The employees of Nucor Seattle responded to the challenge and did 660 safety observations; 286 of which were extra. 21 Torker Bicycles & Pryme Gear Helmets were purchased from local manufacturer – Redline Bicycles in Kent (locally sold at Alki Bike & Board in W Seattle). 57 Warm Coats were purchased and distributed to 3 local charities. The Southwest Youth & Family Services (SYFS) will receive 19 bikes and 45 coats to fulfill the wish list items of 64 W Seattle children. Nucor was able to sponsor a family from the Delridge Neighborhood Development Association (DNDA) and donate coats and bikes to the family. All other coats were donated to the W Seattle Clothesline who will host 6 coat giveaways in conjunction with the Food Bank. Nucor Seattle would like to thank its employees for making the W
Seattle community a little brighter this holiday season.

And while we were at SWYFS, we met Kristina Surface from Westside Unitarian Universalist Congregation, who said she’d rather be referred to as an “elf.” She’s the church’s liaison with SWYFS for donations like the ones just made by the church’s youth group:

(Pictured: WSUU adult advisor Lorelei Amato, Hawk Ehret, Logan Day, Albert Lorenzana, Irene Pemberton, Ryan Han, Mia Shaughnessy, and adult advisor Suki Kaplan)
WSUU had a Giving Tree for SWYFS – before we stopped by the agency (which is based in North Delridge but does work throughout West Seattle, White Center, and beyond), we received the photo and this report from WSUU’s Kari Kopnick:

This is a photo of the Westside Unitarian Universalist Congregation’s youth group with the donations from Westside for our 2010 “Giving Tree” benefiting Southwest Youth and Family Services http://www.swyfs.org/. The congregation donated almost all of the items needed, and the youth group and their advisors decided to take some of the youth group money saved to buy things for the last 17 people on the tree. After a wild trip to Target (Sunday) night, the tree was surrounded! Just a few weeks ago our younger children decorated tags that each had a list of things that people had requested from Southwest Youth and Family Services and hung them on the tree, hoping the congregation could fill requests of 170 people. The requests this year were heartbreaking, things like; towels, comforters and even boxer shorts. We were thrilled to be able to get something for each of the people.

Among the many families helped by SWYFS is the Phan/Harm family, which lost four members in the September murder-suicide shootings; we met two members of the family while at SWYFS, and we’ll update their story – with an update on what they need – separately.