You can make fun of their Spock ears or their authentic Starfleet uniforms. You can roll your eyes at the mention of warp drives.

The club, with members from West Jordan to Provo, has been providing a needy family with Christmas each year for 18 years through Sub for Santa.

"It's just such a warm, wonderful feeling to give to them," Capt. Keira Strong said.

The group, usually around 25 in number, holds a garage sale every year to raise money. They then make enormous stockings to put the gifts in before delivering them to the family. And no, they don't do the delivery as James T. Kirk, Jean-Luc Picard, Mr. Spock or Lt. Worf.

"Some people are slightly strange, I'm going to give you that," Strong says. But the group was founded to participate in public service, not necessarily as a way to geek out over which captain would win in a fist fight, which engineer you'd really want in a pinch, and which future technology is more trouble than it's worth. (The answers are Kirk, Scotty and the Holodeck, respectively.)

As a service group, they're trying to make their own world better, said Strong, who fell in love with the original Star Trek series in the late 1960s.

"Our future doesn't always have to be warring in the Middle East or warring in Vietnam or wherever we are warring."

The little group is also fairly diverse. Members range in age from 9 to 70.

Sub for Santa through the United Way helps as a many as 2,000 families per year in Utah County (including about 5,000 kids). The United Way isn't accepting any more applicants this year, but have a few families left to take care of. Donors are asked to give five things to each child: two presents, two articles of clothing and a book, said spokeswoman Katie Hoshino.

"We want it something simple so the parents aren't intimidated when they get back on their feet," she said.