Originally posted by: MisterJackson
Originally posted by: Patt
Originally posted by: DaShen
Originally posted by: Patt
I once mimicked a local radio station's Toys for Tots type program for a few families I knew. They were all struggling to get by, and their kids had nothing. Spent about $800 on gifts for about a dozen kids, wrapped them up and delivered them on Christmas Eve. The parents could barely even meet my eyes because they were crying. It was all worth it up to that point, but got even better when after I had delivered the last package I heard the following as the door closed: "Mommy, was that Santa Claus?"
Didn't have to shovel my walks all winter
WOW, that is really nice of you!!!!... How did you find the families? Was it a local neighborhood?
Yup, I was living and working in a fairly run-down neighbourhood, and knew the families to say hello on the street.
For $800 you better d@mn well get your drive shoveled!
Just kidding. We did something similar to this with my son's cub scout den. We adopted a family and provided their Christmas. No one else (paret wise) volunteered to do the shopping because of various excuses, so my son and I did it all ourselves.
We of course got the three kids some toys, but we tried to focus spending a bigger chunk on clothing and other necessities. In the end, between 5 sets of "financially well to do" parents in our den (not counting myself as, a single father with a single income household), only $70 was collected to buy a Christmas for three kids! I ended up chipping in $230 of my own money once I did the shopping and realized how pathetic it would be only to spend $70.
But of course when we dropped off the stuff for the family all of those "time deficent" parents were there smiling and feeling good about themselves.
Me personally I felt uncomfortable taking our den into that family's cramped apartment to deliver those presents for the simple fact that I know the mother of that family had to swallow alot of her pride, and the older kids, well I didn't want to put them in a position to make them even remotely feel ashamed.
I supported the idea of one of us dropping it all off to the mother one day when her kids weren't around, but they had to get their kicks off of it I guess.
In the end it was all worth it when the children, even the teenager, just seemd to forget the crap hand they'd been dealt for a little while.