Hufford Funeral Home spreading joy to seniors

FINDLAY — This holiday season, the Hufford Family Funeral Home is doing its 2nd annual Holiday Senior Stocking Drive. The Findlay funeral home's stocking stuffing program originally began as an initiative to support the military and has evolved into an effort to brighten the lives of seniors in nursing homes. The program has delivered over 600 stockings to nursing facilities this year, a sizeable increase from last year's 125 stockings. "Initially when I started the program I was sending the stockings to our military," said Tony Hufford, owner of Hufford Family Funeral Home. "Due to logistics and other factors, getting enough platoons to sign their names overseas got very complicated with the government. "Then we thought about nursing homes and how we could brighten their days during the holiday time." The initiative invites the community to pick-up a stocking at the funeral home, fill it with a variety of items, and return it in time to be delivered by Christmas. A list of suggested items were placed inside each stocking. Items listed included puzzles, crosswords and books. The funeral home then delivers these stockings to nursing homes across Hancock County. "It's really exciting to see when people bring their stockings back, how creative they've been and what they've put in them," Hufford said. "We don't go through each one of them, but just looking at them you can see that they are filled with things that give them something to enjoy while they're in their residency." Hufford said the response from this year compared to the last has been overwhelming. "Last year we did roughly over 125 stockings," he said. "To do 600 this year, I am just thrilled from the response we've had from the community and the outreach that we've had to those wanting to be a part of this program. I'd like to see it grow even bigger next year, that's the goal." The program is a win-win for both the community and residents at the nursing homes, he said. "For those that want to do something and give back but are not sure how, it gives them the opportunity to do that. For residents in nursing homes, it gives them something that brightens their day and gives them something to enjoy for weeks, months or even throughout the course of the year," he said. Hufford mentioned the initiative is so important because so many seniors don't have any visitors during the holiday season. "Last year, because of the smaller number of stockings we received, we focused on those residents. We didn't want anyone sitting there alone to not have anything for the holidays, but this year with the overwhelming response we've had from the community, everybody gets a stocking. There is no picking and choosing." For Hufford, the initiative has also been a way to repay the residents of Hancock County. "We often see people at their worst, this is a way for us to give back to the community," he said.