A SHOE IN—Joanna Gould of Calabasas shops with a youngster on the Congregation Or Ami holiday shopping spree for foster children at Kohl's department store in Newbury Park. Seventy volunteers from Congregation Or Ami gathered at Kohl's store in Newbury Park on Dec. 7 for the annual Adopt a Child Abuse Caseworker Holiday Shopping Childspree.

Participants chaperoned foster children throughout Kohl's, helping them pick out new clothes and toys for the holidays.

Some prior sponsors were unable to provide the gift cards and Or Ami members paid for new sponsor-ships. Grants from the Gogian Foundation, secured by Calabasas resident Kim Gubner, and the Department of Child and Family Services allowed the congregation to expand Childspree to 40 children.

"Miraculously, as I walked through the store and I saw the previously scared looks on the faces of the foster kids transformed by kindness and new toys into ear to ear smiles. It was so heartwarming," said Thousand Oaks resident and the temple's social action chair Debbie EchtMoxness.