SANTAS HELP MAKE NIGHT A DELIGHT

It never is hard to get members of the Cape Girardeau Jaycees to don red velvet suits and practice their belly laughs for Toybox deliveries.

"We never have to twist arms," said Barb Hopkins, a Jaycees member who helped organize and enlist the troop of Santas for Toybox deliveries Monday night.

Eighteen Santas helped deliver toys for Toybox, a joint program of the Jaycees and Southeast Missourian that provides Christmas gifts to needy children.

Stan Irwin loves to be a Jaycees Santa because it means "getting to see their faces light up" when he delivers toys to the children.

"You can see their parents breath a sigh of relief that you are there to help," he said.

Irwin has been involved with the Toybox project since 1978. Toybox has been helping Cape Girardeau families for 24 years.

Santas and their elf helpers delivered gifts on sleet-covered roads Monday night. But not even the threat of ice and snow can stop a Toybox delivery.

Most of the Jaycees couldn't remember a recent year when the weather was quite so wintry.

"But the weather just puts us in more of a spirit of Christmas," said Darrell Koller, Toybox chairman for the Jaycees.

Robert Floyd spent his second year as a Santa Monday. Though he isn't a Jaycees member, he likes to participate in Toybox deliveries.

"It brings the past back to when you were a kid," he said.