Despite cold, dreary weather, employees of The Victor L. Phillips Company in Springfield, Mo., and their families helped make this Christmas a little more special for area kids by collecting children’s books donated at this year’s annual Christmas Parade Dec. 8.

Organizers for Springfield’s annual parade asked the public to bring new and slightly used children’s books to donate to area organizations and the community responded by bringing more than 550 books.

“I truly couldn’t be more thrilled,” said Erin Russell, parade organizer. “This is something that we are planning to make a tradition each year from now on and hopefully VLP will continue to be a part of it.”

“We are proud to be a part of such a great cause,” said Alex Haldiman, marketing manager, The Victor L. Phillips Company. “It was moving to help people help others. Everyone was just as excited to donate the books as we were to help collect them. We are already looking forward to trying to set a new record next year.”

The books were collected in the buckets of two Takeuchi compact track loaders that were driven along the 1.5-mi. route. The Victor L. Phillips Company sells heavy construction and materials processing equipment. The company has a lineup that includes Atlas Copco, Case Construction Equipment, CEC, Hyundai, Ingersoll Rand, Interstate, Blaw-Knox, Kawasaki, Okada-America, Quipnet and Takeuchi.

For more information, visit www.vlpco.com.