A half-full quart of buttermilk, some surplus cheese, butter and a few eggs were the only items inside the refrigerator.
Allen Smith had come to the 94-year-old woman’s home to drop off a box of food through the Good Cheer Fund. She was adamant that she did not need it, and repeatedly told Smith to take it to someone else.
But when Smith went to unpack the food, he realized what she would never tell him: she needed help.
"Those were the people that made me want to do it again the next year," he said. "A lot of elderly ones wouldn’t ask for help; they went through the Great Depression, they could handle it. But a little help wasn’t going to hurt them."
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Providing help to those who truly needed it is what sticks with Smith. For the last 44 years, he has been part of the distribution of Good Cheer Fund baskets to families throughout Edinburgh. He started out volunteering with the food distribution, and later served as organizer for the Edinburgh area.
Smith is retiring from his post as chief of the Edinburgh Fire & Rescue at the end of the year. He has passed oversight of Good Cheer deliveries to a new organizer, and for the first time since 1975, he won’t be delivering food and toys around Christmas.
"Allen is the face of Good Cheer in the Edinburgh community. He knows who needs help and finds a way to help them," said Jacob Sappenfield, chairman of the Good Cheer Fund. "I am grateful for his service to his community. There are not too many people who will dedicate their free time during the holiday season as Allen has done for the past four decades."
But even as he steps aside, Smith holds on to all of the chances he’s had to make the holidays just a little bit better for people.
"Just enough to help somebody out, that makes my day," he said. "Just making people smile."
Before the fire department became involved, the Good Cheer Fund in Edinburgh was handled by the town’s civil defense. But in the early 1970s, those departments were dissolved to form the Johnson County Emergency Management Agency, leaving a void to fill.
One of the members of the civil defense, Tom Coleman, approached Smith and others at the fire department about taking over the responsibility in 1975.
"We thought if everyone took 10 or 15 businesses to see if they’d donate to help us get it going again," Smith said.
Eddy Teets, who was the organizer for the overall Good Cheer Fund, helped Coleman and others in Edinburgh get the effort started again in the town. That first year, they gave out about 40 baskets, Smith said.
Over the years, that number only increased.
Smith helped out each year, and in the early 1990s, Coleman asked him to take over organization of the deliveries. He’s done so ever since.
Putting together Good Cheer deliveries takes a lot of work and planning throughout the year. Food had to be ordered, donations had be collected, applications had to be taken. Smith would often take vacation in the weeks leading up to the delivery just to ensure all of the details were covered and everyone who needed a food basket got one.
And the physical toll of loading and unloading hundreds of items of food can be exhausting.
But all of it has been worthwhile just to see the appreciation of those who get help, Smith said.
Years ago, the fire department started using some donations to buy toys for children of the families they would help. One Christmas Eve, Smith was dropping off a basket by himself, one of the last for the day.
The single mom had two children, but no money to buy toys for them for Christmas. So Smith went back out, canvassed the town for any place that was still open and bought some toys so the kids had presents.
When he returned around 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve, the children looked at him in awe.
"One of them just hung on my leg the whole time, asking ‘Are you Santa Claus?’" he said. "Watching those kids play with those toys, and the gleam in their eyes, it made my day. When I went home, I had to shed some tears before I went in."
With his retirement looming, Smith sought someone new to lead the distribution. What he found was so much more — a group of people to take over the job. He has been working with the Edinburgh Ministerial Association, a group of the town’s ministers and churches, on taking it over this year.
"They took all of our equipment, all of the funds we had, and they’re going to run it this year," Smith said.
