Small business makes holidays special at Clearbrook sites

Employees of a Wood Dale business, their family, friends and other community members helped make Christmas special on Monday for 269 people with disabilities served by Arlington Heights-based Clearbrook.

That's when Santa and his elf delivered presents to Clearbrook sites in Rolling Meadows, Schaumburg and Berkeley donated by Kings Global Logistics of Wood Dale.

The small business has been gathering presents for those served by Clearbrook since 2003. With a staff of only three, the company relies on help from others, but this year especially had a tremendous amount of involvement from the community, said Pam Mayo, the company's managing director.

"Employees give up hours and hours to do this," she said. "It wouldn't be done without a core team."

"It's just been an amazing experience."

At Clearbrook Commons in Rolling Meadows, Santa arrived Monday morning to the excitement of those gathered for a Christmas party. After the singing of "Jingle Bells," Santa called up each person by name to receive gifts.

Two parties were scheduled to hand out gifts in Rolling Meadows, which had the most people receiving presents of the three Clearbrook sites.