Grapevine Relief and Community Exchange held an open house for its annual Christmas Cottage on Tuesday, Dec. 12. The event served to help the community learn about the service GRACE provides to local families in need, with attending families encouraged to bring a new, unwrapped toy to donate to the GRACE Christmas Cottage.

The Christmas Cottage is set up in a donated space, and this year the former New Life Family Church building on Timberline Drive acted as that space before it is torn down and the area is used for the new Grapevine Fire Station. Families in need of assistance from the financial burden of Christmas shopping can go to the GRACE main office to become qualified to shop in the Christmas Cottage. Qualified families are given an allotted "budget" that allows parents to purchase the GRACE market to shop for toys and other goodies for their children.

The cottage began serving local families Dec. 8 and will continue to do so until Dec. 22. GRACE officials said it takes 80 volunteers a day to assist the approximately 650 families that are served by the Christmas Cottage. That number carries over to impact nearly 2,000 children.