US Marine and Santa Visit Centennial Golf Club

Despite the fact that it is his busy season, Santa Claus was able to spare a few hours Sunday, December 4th to entertain about 2 dozen local youths at the Centennial Golf Club's 1st annual Breakfast with Santa celebration.

Parents, grandparents and kids enjoyed a hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon, home fries and pancakes along with assorted juices and coffee for the adults. Attendees enjoyed scrumptious desserts of cookies and brownies along with hot chocolate. There was also holiday music, coloring books and games for the kids. Santa appeared around 11 am and spent over an hour chatting with the kids and learning what they wanted for Christmas.

The club's director of sales and marketing, Maggie Flynn, was pleased with the turnout or over 50 people for the first time event. Miss Flynn and club employee Dan Bernard also arranged for a US Marine to attend and accept gifts brought by the attendees for the US Marine Corps "Toys for Tots" program. Corporal Carlos Ayala who is currently stationed at Stewart Air Force Base in Newburgh was in attendance and in full dress blues. Growing up in Harlem, he was all too happy to help the Toys for Tots cause. The children and adults were impressed with his dress blues and hearing about his life in the Corp.  Over 2 dozen new unwrapped toys were donated by the families who attended the event and each person who donated was entered into a raffle drawing prizes of lunch for two at Nelson's (the clubs on-premises pub)  as well as some buckets of balls for the golfers in the crowd. All in all everyone had a great time and were unanimous in their enthusiasm to attend the 2nd annual event next year.