Christ Church members buddy up with kids for Christmas

The Reading Buddies of Christ Church celebrated the season with their young reading partners from the 13th Ave. Dream Center in Bradenton on Dec. 12. It is Christ Church’s 12th year of the Reading Buddies program. 

The children involved in the program delighted reading buddies and parents as they put on a short recital of Christmas music in the church, including a rendition of “Happy Birthday” dedicated to Jesus. 

Everyone filed out to have the children listen to Santa Claus and Beverly Sutton, who organizes the program. Santa and Sutton thanked the teachers of the Dream Center for the work they do with the children and the program. The children from the Dream Center, who have been seeing their reading buddy every other week since the beginning of the school year, joined their mentors for dinner and received presents afterwards. Children and their parents joined their reading buddies for dinner, and each child in the reading program received a gift from the church.