The 25th annual Children’s Inner-City School Christmas Luncheon was held Wednesday at the DoubleTree.

Over 700 students and staff from Sacred Heart and Albert Community schools came together for a Christmas themed lunch served by several organizations around the city, including members of the Regina Pats and Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Riders defensive lineman Micah Johnson said it’s always good to help the community.

“I think any time you can service the community, it’s huge, and then when you factor in you’re talking about children, it makes it even that much more special,” Johnson said. “(I’m) really just trying to put smiles on all of the kid’s faces and put some food in their bellies.”

Members of STARS air ambulance, Regina Police and Regina Fire also helped serve food to the school members throughout the afternoon.

Sacred Heart principal Gilles Dauphinais said every student and staff member gets to attend from his school.

“For many of our children, unfortunately Christmas isn’t like what we see on TV, they live in some unfortunate conditions,” Dauphinais said. “Having the opportunity to have a great meal like this, and be surrounded in a beautiful hotel with lots of love and their friends and their teachers, it’s a great lunch and it’s something we look forward to each and every year.”

Regina DoubleTree Director of Sales and Marketing Rick Fraser said it’s important to support the community.

“This community supports us, they give us business, they help us employ 150 people here,” Fraser said. “Without doing things like this and just acknowledging the importance of business and what we can actually do to help, I think this is just one small way for us to do that.”

Fraser adds it is estimated more than 17,000 hot meals have been served in the history of the program.