ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 26, 1996 TAG: 9611260079
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: MARGARET BROWN SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
It will be decades before he'll look like a real Santa Claus. After all, Tony Huffman, one of the new Santas at the Montgomery County Christmas Store, is only 25 and lacks the curly white beard or chubby red cheeks that any self-respecting Santa should have.
But Huffman is a Santa just the same.
This year, he used his computer skills to create a home page for the Christmas Store, a treasure-trove of new and used clothing and toys, plus food and household items - even gift-wrapping - for low-income families. He donated the World Wide Web site, too.
Year round, thanks to Huffman's generosity, anyone with Internet access can log on to the site to find out about eligibility, donations, volunteers and finances of the store. There's even a calendar of events updated periodically. You can log on to the site at http: //www.hamnetcenter.com/cstore and be on the lookout for the date when the Virginia Tech football team will volunteer.
Huffman is hoping the home page will result in extra donations to the Christmas Store or perhaps give other areas an idea for their own Christmas stores. So far, he said, about 65 people have accessed the site.
Huffman, a graduate of New River Community College, works full time at Litton Industries Poly-Scientific Corp. in Blacksburg as an electronic technician testing torque motors for planes and missiles. But in May, he opened his own business, Huffman Automated Machines or "HAMnet," offering in-home Internet consulting and providing Internet access. His dream is to run HAMnet full time.
"I'd forgotten all about it," he said with a laugh, "but for one of my courses at Christiansburg High School, maybe English, I had to create an idea for a business complete with plans. I called it Huffman Automated Machines."
Huffman shrugged about this HAMish predecessor. "In high school, I was your basic computer nerd," he admitted.
Maybe. But he's going places and not forgetting where he's been. The oldest of three children, he remembers his parents and other relatives shopping at the Christmas Store for new and used toys and clothes for their families. The Christmas Store, established in 1982, awards approved families 100 shopping points per child and 35 per household to be redeemed at the store.
"It really helps families out," Huffman said. "I always said I'd help the store when I got older, but I never did. Then I saw an e-mail about the store needing volunteers, and I knew it was time to pay back for what I got years ago. So here I am."
A couple of his friends also plan to volunteer, "only because I got on their nerves about it," he said. Volunteers like Huffman are critical to the store's operation. The Montgomery County Christmas Store is entirely nonprofit and all-volunteer, proud that 94 percent of the money donated goes directly to purchasing new goods. Dave Nickerson, a longtime volunteer, said the store buys toys and clothes and goods on sale all through the year, storing items until the time comes to sort and shelve once again for the few days the store is open for business.
Located on Roanoke Street in Christiansburg (across from Hill's Department Store), the Christmas Store is just beginning to take shape. Nickerson proudly shows off plans: the teen gift room, the food store, the nursery, gift-wrap. You can see rows of coats in the corner, and piles of boxes, all neatly labeled, ready to be unpacked. Hundreds of shelves sit waiting, and the walls of the long-empty building have been white-washed. Some volunteers were picking through donations. "To make sure everything is of good quality," Nickerson said. Familiar Disney characters have been painted on paper murals, but "we have a lot of decorating left to do," Nickerson said. "We try to make it different every year."
Huffman plans to help with the preparations, too. "I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of the other volunteers, as well as some of the families who work to accumulate 30 extra shopping points," he said.
He'll also be around for Dec. 11, the first day the store is open to the approved families. "I've never seen the store whole, all stocked and ready to go," he said. He knows lots of volunteers are needed then, too, to act as hosts and hostesses, to load cars, to wrap gifts, to restock shelves and to baby-sit kids.
"Everyone should come out and help, even if it won't help you directly," Huffman said. "It's good for the community."
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM\Staff. Tony Huffman used his computer skills toby CNBcreate a home page for the Christmas Store, where anyone with
Internet access can log on to the site to find out about
eligibility, donations, volunteers and finances of the store. color.
GRAPHIC: If you have Internet access, you can log on to the
Christmas Store home page (above) at
http://www.hamnetcenter.com/cstore.