The Christmas Store of Cleveland County and Crosspointe Care Center broke ground on a new permanent building on Crosspointe Church’s campus at the corner of 24th Avenue and Overbrook Drive Thursday afternoon.
The project will establish the new permanent home of the Christmas Store following the expiration of its current location’s lease at 1030 N. Flood Ave. on Dec. 31.
The Christmas Store of Cleveland County is a nonprofit organization that offers low-income Christmas shopping options.
The space will also allow the care center to expand its operation to serve more Norman residents, according to Johnnie Poirot, director of Crosspointe Care Center.
“We’re busting out the seams, and so it turned out to be a great opportunity for us to be double in size,” Poirot said.
Crosspointe Care Center is a separate entity as a nonprofit through Crosspointe Church and is not funded by the church. Poirot said the church does pay for the care center’s insurance.
Poirot said her team of 57 volunteers often invest money to buy food from the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, where most of the care center’s food comes from. Poirot said when the center was founded in 2000 it served 74 people a month. The center now serves 13,000 people each year, giving around 10-12 meals per family and providing 94,000 meals last year. The center also provides clothing for families.
“A lot of people come in crying and you cry with them and, you know when a kid gets excited to see he gets a birthday cake that somebody donated,” Poirot said “Their stories are real and that just makes our heart happy too, to serve them, because to us, that’s what it’s about”
Poirot said though the Christmas store and care center are separate, they’ll now be working side by side to help as needed.
The organizations serve similar individuals and families according to an April 10 email to OU Daily from Justin Davis, executive director of the Christmas Store of Cleveland County. Davis wrote, working together, both organizations are able to help each other with donations, clients, volunteers and communication of resources to the public.
“Throughout this process we’ve already built a great relationship with the Care Center and Crosspointe church leadership and have discovered we have many individuals that volunteer in both of our organizations," Davis wrote.
The Christmas Store’s original location at 641 E. Robinson St. was displaced after plans were made to demolish the building and expand the Cleveland County Fairgrounds.
Davis wrote the organization’s goal is to move into the new space before October.
“For 57 Years the Christmas Store has had to move around quite a bit,” Davis wrote. “After this year, we’re home! I think our volunteers, clients and community are going to share in our enjoyment and continue to help us with our mission for many years to come.”
This story was edited by Natalie Armour, Audrey McClour, Macey Thaxton, Anusha Fathepure and Madisson Cameron.
