Another Press Christmas for All campaign is in the books, with all the disbursements made and accounting nearly complete. Here's a number that mustn't be lost among its towering multi-digit colleagues: 1.

Yes, 1 represents the ranking of Press Christmas for All's finest friends. These friends begin with all the donors, from the children who saved all year or raised money some other way to help less fortunate kids, to the program's biggest boosters - Tom and Jim Addis, the employees at Transtector, Universal Funding Corp. and the Wozow family, and of course, this year's grand prize winner for biggest donation, Anonymous in Athol. A in A came through with $12,000 on Christmas Day, and gets credit for helping generate thousands more through his challenge during the final week of the campaign.

In between, though, were equally meaningful gifts. We are moved each time we find a check for $5, $10 or $20 with a note indicating there just isn't any more to spare despite the strongest desire to do so. Nothing makes us feel better than to receive a check from someone who says he or she was helped by Press Christmas for All at some point in the past, and feels like it's his or her turn to give back.

That No. 1 wraps its warm arms around our friends in the Post Falls Parks and Rec Department, where applications are handed out and collected, and around the whole team at Kootenai County Fire & Rescue. The latter do an astonishing amount of work, from cataloguing and entering into the database each of the thousands of applications we receive each year, to opening their doors and their hearts to disburse gift cards to more than 9,000 recipients. They're all volunteers, which allows us to guarantee that every penny raised in the campaign goes to needy Kootenai County residents. Not a nickel goes to overhead.

Finally, the program gets a tremendous boost from our two retail partners: Super 1 Foods and Shopko. Both of these wonderful businesses greet Christmas for All recipients like the valued customers they are. More than that, Super 1 and Shopko add 10 percent to the kitty. For instance, if Press Christmas for All buys $100,000 worth of gift cards from either one of these businesses, they give us $110,000 worth of gift cards to distribute. That makes every single donation go 10 percent further.

We won't allow any sadness or remorse for the 2013 campaign falling short of its goal. A lot of joy was generated this holiday season. There are at least 9,200 Kootenai County residents whose Christmases were made merry by the No. 1 people in all the land.