Santa Claus pulled up to Sierra Cooper’s apartment complex in a bright orange Suburban early Tuesday morning.

Loaded with presents and food, Bend Elks member Mike Wildman, his son Matt Cohen and two grandchildren, Nathan and Lindsey Westfall, greeted Cooper with plenty of Christmas cheer.

”We strive really hard to make ends meet,” said Cooper, the mother of two small children. ”It means a lot to get a little extra.”

”This is a really good Christmas this year.”

Back in the Suburban, Wildman and his family said delivering the packages to families in need adds more meaning to their Christmas.

”You should have seen the look on her face when she saw those presents,” said Cohen, after visiting another family at a home in southeast Bend. ”It’s really nice to do for someone else.”

Throughout Bend and other areas of Deschutes County, Bend Elks members and NJROTC students from Mountain View High School delivered holiday care packages to nearly 200 families on Christmas Eve morning. About 400 children received presents. Twenty senior citizens also received care packages.

The effort was part of the Bend Elks Lodge Christmas Charity Baskets program, a 40- to 50-year tradition in Bend, said Bill Hughes, leading knight for the Elks club.

Despite the snow and below- freezing temperatures, Hughes and dozens of volunteers showed up at the Elks Lodge around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday to prepare for their deliveries. Hundreds of boxes of donated food items and bags of wrapped presents lined folding tables at the Elks Lodge.

Outside, volunteers organized nearly 200 hams, cartons of milk, bags of apples and potatoes and packages of margarine to complete the packages.

”This is our fun,” joked Hughes, as he worked to organize Tuesday’s mass delivery.

The Elks Lodge starts preparing for the Christmas baskets in early fall. Members buy hams and essential food items for the packages and then work with local schools to collect donations of canned foods. This year, Buckingham Elementary School, High Lakes Middle School and Cascade Middle School, along with a local Papa Murphy’s restaurant, collected food donations.

Collection boxes were set up for donations of toys, and the Central Oregon Motorcycle Association also provided gifts from its annual toy run.

In addition, NJROTC members collected bags of food to supplement the work of the Elks. One high school senior, Stacy Sult, spent her own money this Christmas on buying food to help out. ”A lot of people are worse off than I am,” she said. ”I don’t think they should be stressed whether they have a meal on Christmas.”

The Elks get the names of families in need from the Salvation Army. Each year, the list gets longer. And even though the club originally planned the drive for the Bend area, they made deliveries to La Pine, Redmond and even to the Tollgate area past Sisters.

”The need keeps growing,” Hughes said.

But despite this growing demand, the Elks are determined to keep the tradition. Delivering the goods to families makes their efforts worthwhile.

”When you go to that house and present them with toys, it makes your Christmas,” Hughes said.

Rebecca Merritt can be reached at 541-383-0348 or rmerritt@bendbulletin.com.