Santa’s Workshop in Great Bend was open to the public on Monday, Dec. 8, for children of all ages.

Great Bend High School students, community volunteers and Great Bend Recreation Commission staff transformed the City Auditorium into Santa’s Workshop for the 29th year. Children could participate at holiday themed booths throughout the night and visit Santa with their wish list.

For the first time in memory, there was a live reindeer – one of Santa’s? – outside the auditorium. Garet Fitzpatrick at the Rec said they contacted Dash Away Reindeer out of Towanda to bring it to the event.

“We also brought in StoneLion Puppets to have roaming puppets walking through the crowd,” he said.

“We ordered 700 sugar cookies for the kids to decorate as a snowman and we ran out at the end of the event. We gave out approximately 650 fish pond prizes; we couldn’t do the program without all GBHS students that help run the booth.”

In addition to students from the Great Bend High School student organizations, those helping with the event were the Barton Community College Softball Team, Barton County Sheriff’s Department, Great Bend Fire/EMS Department, Great Bend Police Department, and the Great Bend Rec Commission. The USD 428 Parents as Teachers, Parent Teacher Resource Center - PTRC, Sunflower Early Education Center, and Great Bend Public Library Children’s Department provided a mini Santa’s Workshop in the Burnside Room designed for preschoolers.

Donations were provided by: GBRC, C & V Home Improvement, Dillons, Eagle Media, Farmers Bank and Trust, GB Tires, Great Bend Rotary Club, Hammeke Electric, Kiwanis Club of Great Bend, Mark’s Custom Signs, Nex-Tech and Nex-Tech Wireless, Northview Nursery & Landscape, Office Products Inc., Optimist Club of Great Bend, Pryor Automatic Fire Sprinkler, Scott’s Welding Service, University of Kansas Health Systems-Great Bend, Walmart, and Wheatland Electric Cooperative.