Red Andrews Foundation Preparing For Annual Christmas Dinner

Preparations are underway for Oklahoma City’s 73rd annual Red Andrews Christmas meal.

On Christmas day volunteers will welcome less fortunate families to the Cox Convention Center, feeding them a holiday meal and giving children gifts, a coat, and shoes. 

“Our clientele start lining up between 3 and 4:00 in the morning,” the foundation’s chairman Robert Goldman said.

He expects between 6,000 and 7,000 people Wednesday morning.

“The spirit down there is incredible,” Goldman said. “There’s no grumpy faces.”

Hundreds of volunteers from across the community pitch in to make it all work.

“We have people that will call us and say they lost a loved one that year and they don’t want to stay home,” Goldman said.

“I’ve had my children there when they were eight and five, now I have my grandchildren who are eight and five, and they understand,” Goldman said. “They can see a mound of toys and know that they’re not going to go home with a toy and have the pleasure of giving it to another child that they know would probably not have that toy without what we are doing at Red Andrews Christmas.”

Goldman said volunteers are welcome Christmas day. He said they are especially needed around noon.

“You know, it is Christmas,” he said. “There is probably nothing more giving, nothing more satisfying I should say, than giving back to people who may be a little less fortunate.”

Monetary donations and new unwrapped toys can be dropped off at Goldman’s office located at 222 NW 13th Street, Frontier Bank and Court Furniture locations and Edmond Jackie Cooper car dealerships.