Christmas came a little early Friday at Chenowith Elementary in The Dalles as local car dealership Tonkin of The Gorge arrived to provide some early holiday cheer with each student receiving a set of Y-ties—curly, elastic, no-tie shoelaces—along with other holiday treats.

First year Chenowith Principal Monica Darnall said that “sometimes we inherit things we are not expecting, and we had received a bill for these Y-ties that had gone missing back in 2017. So, we were looking at our budget and trying to figure out how to pay the company that had sent us the Y-ties for a fundraiser that had never taken place.