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Kindness and Innovation at Its Best!
My name is Vicki Vawter and my husband Lenny and I have been organizing an effort to support families of Advancing Community Excellence program for WJCC. It started with a smaller subset of families that the agency felt was most in need, and has grown to fulfill gifts for every family.
When I spoke with Ms. Crump this year and she explained that we would not be able to have the families pick up collected toys for each child in the program, I started to ponder how we could still make it work. A few challenges immediately seemed to surface, but the Head Start staff was SO helpful in making sure that every child had a chance to get something special. Their speedy responses throughout was amazing as it has been every year, and truly that’s what made it impossible for us to consider working with any other agency. They clearly care about their families SO much and we are inspired by each of them.
Now, how are we going to find friends to “sponsor” 100+ children and place 100+ Amazon orders to be sent directly to each home in time for the holidays? With COVID-19 and all the difficulties surrounding 2020, we were worried that maybe our circle of generous friends may not be able to help as much as before, especially when we committed to helping all 100+ families – the most we’ve ever done.
Thankfully, we needn’t worry. Thanks to Facebook, tagging all the friends from last year, and friends sharing the info with others, we were able to get each and every child sponsored. Some friends sponsored 2 even 5 children who were financially able. Almost every child received their first choice of a toy from princess tents, to Big Wheels, to scooters, and kitchen sets. The ones who received their second was just due to inventory on Amazon, so that made us all very happy.
We are thrilled to be a part of this again and thank you all for the opportunity to “play Santa” for the kids and to lift a small financial burden to the parents, grandparents, or guardians at the holidays. We can’t wait to do it again in 2021!