GM workers aid the needy

This isn't the first time GM employees have helped out needy area residents.
LORDSTOWN -- 'Tis the season for giving and give they did.
Paint department employees at the General Motors complex teamed up with Ghafari Companies to help make Christmas a little brighter for nearly 100 area children and families.
Some 173 brightly wrapped gifts and 15 new bicycles will make their way to needy children in Mahoning County this holiday season. During a presentation at the new GM paint shop cafeteria, the donation of toys, clothes and $5,000 in cash was made to Salvation Army officials for distribution.
Ghafari is a Dearborn, Mich., manufacturing and engineering contractor who has been working on the new paint shop. The company had about 350 people working with UAW members on the project.
Gary Winslow, director of paint finishing for Ghafari, said between his on-site staff and about 100 GM workers just felt it was the right to do.
Quotable
"We are all very grateful for this project to be here. We're all very fortunate to be working. There are a lot of less fortunate people than us," he said.
Jim Kaster, president of UAW Local 1714 at the plant, said the generosity was an expression of good will.
"I'd like to thank the employees -- they really did a good job. It was nice of them to give back to people in need," he said.
Kaster said this isn't the first time GM employees have helped out area residents during the holidays. He noted that they've been doing programs of this nature for over 20 years.
Even the Lordstown Police Department got in the act by supplying an escort out of the GM complex as cars and vans filled with the gifts and bikes made their way to the Salvation Army in Youngstown.