Lealman Fire Department<\/a> responded to on Christmas Eve brought a new meaning to a timely response.<\/p>\nBefore making his way around the world overnight, Santa Claus \u2014 joined by the department\u2019s firefighters \u2014 paid a visit to a few dozen homes in Lealman, a community neighboring St. Pete.<\/p>\n
The firefighters and Santa arrived on a fire engine with bikes, dollhouses and toys for over 3,000 children throughout the community. The department\u2019s firefighters spent the past year putting aside funds from their own paychecks, so they could participate in this annual tradition. They also received donations from retailers and businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re delivering presents to all the kids in all the housing areas, the apartment complexes, mobile home parks, places like that,\u201d said Division Chief Jim Millican. \u201cThey see Santa Claus. They’re super excited. Puts a tear in your eye.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to gifts, the department is bringing Christmas dinner to 1,000 families and a full Christmas, which includes dinner and toys, to 85 families.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Families that received gifts were brought to tears as well, saying Christmas wouldn\u2019t be the same without these firefighters\u2019 generosity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve been really rough on work and everything else, and it’s been really hard. They wouldn’t really have much of a Christmas if it wasn’t for them,\u201d parent Ashley Burch said. \u201cIt means everything to me. They love seeing Santa.\u201d<\/p>\n
It may not have come in the bright red sleigh they were expecting, but Wednesday\u2019s call was proof that Santa doesn\u2019t always need reindeer to deliver Christmas joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s an annual tradition that the department spends all year saving up for. LEALMAN, Fla. \u2014 A fire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-95346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}