ELKHART -- Sometimes the cavalry doesn't come riding horses.

Sometimes it comes driving pickup trucks loaded with food.

The striking Vincent Bach workers gathered at the Northside Church of the Nazarene, 53569 C.R. 7, Saturday to celebrate Christmas with their families and co-workers and to get a couple of gifts for their children. Seated around tables covered with red and green plastic, the musical instrument makers enjoyed pizza and punch while listening to members of other unions make speeches and offer words of encouragement.

After eight months of sneers and harsh treatment of those outside of the union, Stephanie Artley was relieved to spend an afternoon with people who, she said, understood for what the union is fighting.

"I don't want to be out here," she said. "I'm a hard worker. I've worked all my life but I want my children to have a job."

The 230 workers from the Vincent Bach plant, represented by the United Auto Workers Local 364, walked to the picket line April 1, 2006, when their contract expired. Since then Conn-Selmer, the parent company, has made three other offers but the membership has overwhelmingly voted them down, citing differences over health care benefits, mandatory overtime and replacement workers.

About 23 union members have crossed the picket line and gone back inside the factory. The rest have remained outside.

Saturday's event was the result of other unions and other locals, made aware of the situation in Elkhart by a small group from Local 364, collecting donations from their members.

"I think everybody who leaves out of here today will feel a little bit better, even if it's only for a day," Robert Allen, vice president of Local 364, said. The boost of confidence was needed but he held out little hope it would make any difference in the strike.

"I like this," said Steve Cassidy, walking around the celebration. "It's a good thing for all the people. It gets your mind off things."

While the Vincent Bach workers were listening to speeches about solidarity not only among themselves but among all workers, a group of people carrying bags of toys and cartons of food walked quietly through the door. Representatives from UAW Local 685 from the DaimlerChrysler plants in Kokomo had squeezed their pickup trucks with food and toys and drove north to bring Christmas to the Vincent Bach workers whom they had never met but who were workers just like them.

"We found our brothers and sisters in need," said Sue Henson, who has been a union member for 30 years. "Whatever we got, we'll be happy to share."

The 5,500 members of Local 685 made donations after reading a letter describing the strife in Elkhart. Kim Ford, who has belonged to a union for 25 years, said he and his colleagues, who are facing their own contract negotiations in September 2007, still do not know a lot about the Vincent Bach strike but "we're supporting them 100 percent."

After the speeches, Deneen Seigler and Kent Hilliard, both Vincent Bach workers, began calling children's names and passing out gifts.

Swinging her hand over the stuffed animal, story book, containers of soap bubbles and backpack her two grandchildren had received, Linda Waldron was grateful. This was Christmas, she said, because the months on the strike line had left her with no money for gifts.

Through the labor dispute, Waldron is hoping her grandson and granddaughter are learning to be strong. "In whatever you do, be strong," she said. And "don't start something you're not going to finish."

Pretty and shy 10-year-old Nicole Kish joined the strike from the moment her father, David Kish, walked out of the plant. She has helped make some of the signs posted on the line in front of the factory.

"Stoney must go," she said, a reference to Conn-Selmer president John Stoner who many union members say is destroying the Vincent Bach name.

Amid the talk of solidarity and fighting for workers' rights, there were conversations at the party of how laborers have to battle corporations, and sometimes even their own union, for fair wages and working conditions.

As president of UAW Local 2036 at the Accuride plant in Henderson, Ky., Billy Robinson first fought the company for a contract and then fought the UAW. From February 1998 to April 2003, the members of Local 2036 walked the picket line until they received a letter from company management saying the UAW had pulled their charter and decertified the Local.

"They said there was no way to win the situation," Robinson said of the UAW. "I think they sold us out."

The bearded Robinson's dispute with his union does not extend to union members. He was at the Christmas party to rally the workers.

"My purpose is to encourage people to stand up and get what they deserve," Robinson said. "Give them something they can live with. They built this company."

Both Waldron and Artley stand behind their union, their Local's leadership and their colleagues who, the women maintain, are united.

Pointing out that unions brought the 40-hour work week and stopped companies from working their employees to death, Artley said she does not mind if she does not get her job back at Vincent Bach so long as workers across the country keep what they have earned.

"Sometimes doing what's right hurts," Artley said.

Contact Marilyn Odendahl at modendahl (at) etruth.com.