FAIRBORN — Fairborn residents got up bright and early to participate in Deer Heating and Cooling’s annual Christmas ham giveaway.
By the time owner and operator Mike Hall arrived at his business 6 a.m. Wednesday morning, ten cars were already in line to receive the Christmas hams. By the time the giveaway started at 9 a.m., cars had lined up all the way through Fairfield Park to Central Avenue.
“We started a little bit early because of that,” Hall said Wednesday morning, wearing a festive reindeer suit jacket. (The jacket is a gift from his wife, he said.)
The Christmas ham giveaway, now in its 12th year, saw the company give away 250 hams along with 5-pound bags of potatoes on a first-come, first-served basis.
Deer Heating and Cooling, a faith-based business, had pretty much closed normal operations for the day as workers pitched in to distribute the hams. Around 25 people helped to give out food, including Deer employees and some of their family members. Fairborn police also helped out with the giveaway by streamlining traffic flow and counting cars.
All 250 hams were given away by around noon Wednesday.
“It’s just a good thing to do. The community is good to us. Everyone needs something this year. Especially this year,” Hall said.
The woes of 2020 did not affect Deer’s Christmas ham giveaway in too drastic a fashion, other than requiring masks of all participants and workers. “Ham Day” has always been a drive-thru event, Hall noted, so allowing for coronavirus restrictions required only a slight adjustment.
“It’s our way of giving back to the community we live and work in,” Hall said in a company Facebook post.
