Every year Christmas in the Wards (CITW) hosts a Christmas Spectacular across the city. The organization gives away hundreds of laptops, winter clothes, technology gifts and food, as well as thousands of toys at mega events in Chicago and surrounding communities. To celebrate its 26th anniversary, Christmas in the Wards will serve forty wards in Chicago, ten Southland communities and Proviso Township this year at three mega-events.
On December 10, 2022, ahead of those events, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who is the Chairperson of Christmas in the Wards, accompanied six (6) families from four (4) wards and two (2) Ukranian families shopping at the Pullman Walmart, 10900 S. Doty Avenue in Chicago. This launches the Shopping in the Wards events which continue for over 700 families at participating Walmart and Amazon Fresh stores throughout Chicagoland. Families will shop for essentials and toys around Pullman Walmart with the mayor, and Christmas in the Wards sponsors will be on hand to help families check out. Mayor Lightfoot is back for this annual lead-up event as Chicago Mayors continue the tradition of supporting Christmas in the Wards since its beginnings at Christmas in Englewood in 1996. Mayor Lightfoot was the first recipient of CITW’s Service to the Community Award, an honor she bestowed upon the third recipient, Jerome Davis, Pullman Walmart Store Manager at Laptops on the Lane at Soldier Field 2021.