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Foster children and children from Kids ‘n Kops were in for a surprise on Thursday, when Pepsi presented them with several gifts off of their wish list thanks to several generous donations.

Kevin Horton, sales manager of Pepsi, said earlier this year Pepsi passed out beverages at BPS National Night Out and started discussing partnering with BPS and how they could help. In addition to partnering with BPS, Horton met Amy Eakin with the Oak House and wanted to partner with her as well to help children in DFACS.

“The first thing we did was provide eight families in DFACS with a Thanksgiving meal,” Horton said. “Then we just went from there.”

Horton then assigned his front line employees to teams and did a competition to see who could raise the most money. Once a total was garnered, Horton said Pepsi then matched to buy local kids Christmas presents.

The front line employees raised $350, which was then matched and used for catering and gifts for the children.

Horton said one of the front line employees in particular was extremely passionate about it.

“His team alone raised $135,” Horton said.

Horton said this project made them want to be more involved in the community, and he hopes to continue to do it next year and have it be even bigger, since the employees were not exactly sure what they were getting into this year.

Horton took the spillover from Shop with a Cop and children from DFACS and committed to approximately 25 children. They then took the list given to them by the organizations and loaded up with dolls, basketballs, footballs, puzzles, games and everything the kids asked for.

Upon opening the presents, the kids faces lit up with utter joy that their wishes were coming true. Horton said Pepsi was thankful for the opportunity to be able to provide this for the children and looks forward to other ways to be involved.