by Noella Noelophile®
“Attention, please!” called Jim “Woody” Woods. “We just hit 1900!”
Volunteers burst into applause. “Operation Easter Basket”, 2016, was well on its way towards its goal: 2,600 Easter baskets for charity. 
It was Friday, March 25th, and Justin Rudd’s twelfth annual “Operation Easter Basket” was in full swing at Bay Shore Church, in Long Beach.
At 9:00 that morning, this was where things stood.
Volunteers had been stopping by to drop off baskets they’d created since Thursday morning. A number of community organizations had already come by to pick up the baskets they’d been promised, for Easter. More were coming.
And still more baskets needed to be put together.
Everyone began pitching in, to fill these with candy, small toys, school supplies and (of course) personal-hygiene products.
Of course, the goal–and the challenge–was to make each basket about equal in value. Since siblings often receive their baskets together, the gifts needed to be similar.
By noon, the fruits of all this labor were evident. .
Long Beach “Chief Inspiration Officer” Justin Rudd had promised Easter baskets to a number of local charities.
As staff members from these organizations arrived, volunteers formed a sort of “bucket brigade” (Easter-basket brigade?) to the waiting vehicles.
As always, getting to be part of “Operation Easter Basket” was a festive blast!
The “Helpful Honda Crew” showed up once again–and were, predictably, helpful.
Volunteers brought doughnuts and a luscious devils-food cake, which evaporated after Justin managed to coax the volunteers to take a break. “I’m in here eating cake while y’all are working,” he called, from the kitchen.
And as always, some Easter-basket supplies were so popular that they ran out. Volunteers made “shopping runs” for more full-sized tubes of toothpaste, candy bars and bottles of body wash. By the end of the day, small toys and school supplies were also running out. (Just in case you’d like to note what’s needed for next year!0
Now, how did the 2016 edition of “Operation Easter Basket” do? In 2015, they surpassed their goal of 2,379 baskets by more than a hundred. 
This year, they came very close.
Admittedly, this year’s final tally is marginally lower than the original 2,600-basket goal. (There may have been some baskets that went uncounted, as well. These are the ones volunteers recorded on a tick sheet after putting them together.)
But, Operation Easter Basket has just helped more than 2,400 underprivileged youth have a Happy Easter.
And for the volunteers who had the opportunity to help, Easter came early.