A lot of smiles, excitement and a few tears filled the visiting area at Cedar Hill Care Center Sunday afternoon as families, children, girl scout troops and other organizations gifted seniors some heartfelt presents for the holidays.

Santa for Seniors, which began last year, grew into an operation that astounded founder Jamie Crozier as she received more donations for less fortunate, elderly community members than she thought was possible.

“There were a lot of people that were involved in this,” Crozier said. “My phone was ringing off the hook, from text messages, people calling me, people messaging me.”

Thanks to many generous donations, Santa for Seniors was able to “adopt” 41 seniors at Cedar Hill, eight seniors at Appletree Homes, and deliver containers filled with general gifts, snacks and diet pops, and trash bags full of blankets, to Cedar Hill, Willow Haven Care Center, Adams Lane Care Center and Appletree Homes.

Additionally, in partnership with Shrivers Pharmacy, Santa for Seniors is also delivering donations to the Abbott Senior Living this week.

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“I’m not usually speechless, and seeing all of this come together, it’s amazing to see,” Crozier said. “Everybody that came together for this, my kids, my grand kids came and helped out. It was just amazing.”

Many individuals adopted seniors, as well as organizations like girl scout troops, a preschool class, Spectrum Call Center, Team Coby and others.

On Sunday, many of those people and organizations came to Cedar Hill to hand-deliver their gifts to the seniors they had shopped for.

The gifts were as simple as long-sleeved shirts, lotions, blankets, slippers or even candy bars.

While not every senior at Cedar Hill was able to be adopted, Vicky Wilson, one of the volunteers with Santa for Seniors, her grandchildren made a gift bag for each senior so no one went back to their room empty handed.

Crozier extended so much thanks to all those who donated and supported the initiative to adopt seniors for Christmas. She especially thanked Characters Express for volunteering time to bring Mickey and Minnie Mouse to the facility, as well as South Zanesville Fire Department who brought Santa on a fire truck.