Gift wrap booth donations are even more important this year as Children’s Inn expands

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) - The Children’s Inn gift wrap booth, located in the Macy’s wing of the Empire Mall is open daily through Christmas Eve.

Gifts are wrapped in exchange for donations.

“We utilize hundreds of volunteers to wrap the gifts,” said Amy Carter, Program Director at the Children’s Inn. “There’s not set donation, it is all shapes and sizes, but if people need their gifts wrapped, because there’s a lot of people who don’t like to wrap gifts, we can take that on for them and it helps a good cause.”

That good cause is the Children’s Inn.

It’s an organization that helps empower victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse by providing emergency shelter, crisis intervention, counseling, advocacy, and support.

The gift wrap booth is one of the major fundraisers for Children’s Inn each year. This year donations are even more important because the Children’s Inn is expanding.

“A new building will allow us to have more space, first and foremost. We won’t have women double-bunking all the time, people sleeping in our family rooms and that’s what we are dealing with now and have for several years. And we know that people who come to us deserve more than that. And additional beds and space will allow us to do that,” said Carter.

The ground has already broken on the new, 96-bed shelter. The Children’s Inn hopes to be operational by next fall.

Each gift wrapped at the mall gift wrap booth gets them closer to that goal. “We want to continue to be able to serve at no charge for those coming to us and continue to be able to meet the need for our community,” said Carter. “But we absolutely need others to help us with that at the gift wrap booth is an important part of that.”

More information on Children’s Inn can be found here: https://chssd.org/childrensinn

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