As a Medical Social Worker with the Division of Public Health, this project was a great surprise! When I received the call from Rhonda asking if our clients could benefit from Christmas help this year, I felt very privileged that we were chosen as recipients. It was very touching to know that families had decided to buy gifts for those in need rather than their own relatives and friends. This is the true meaning of giving.
This project was a first for the Division of Public Health staff and one we all enjoyed! We work in the Home Visiting Program with Maternal Child Health. Our clients are generally lower income pregnant mothers and/or those with babies and children. Financial difficulties cause stress for many families, especially at the holidays. So we felt very fortunate when asked if we would like to participate in the Share A Pair Program.
We referred four families for assistance at Christmas and when DPH staff arrived to pick up the gifts at Shoes 2 Share, it was overwhelming! The gifts were beautifully wrapped and stacked in large storage bins ready for delivery! Delivering the gifts to the families was the best job ever. We were greeted with smiles, hugs and even tears when they saw that their children would now have gifts on Christmas morning!
On behalf of our clients, the Division of Public Health would like to acknowledge the generosity of the many people that made this program possible. THANK YOU!!!
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A quote from one of the “Share-a-Pair” Christmas 2011 donor families – Samantha Hughes on behalf of the Howard Family
Last year our family started a new tradition of a charitable gift that our whole family would help to put together for a local family/families. This year I really wanted to head up this part of our party. I feel like the true spirit of the Christmas season can sometimes be clouded over by the stress of shopping and parties and decorating, etc…but to take time amidst the hustle and bustle to do something selfless for people in need that we don’t even know . . . to me, that IS Christmas spirit!
This year I entitled our charitable gift project, Christmas Shoes! My idea originated from a conversation with my sister talking about all the people in Haiti and around the world in need of shoes. So I started doing some research to figure out how to get shoes to Haiti. Eventually I came across Shoes 2 Share and started talking to Rhonda Wampler (founder) about donating shoes. Through our conversation I realized that I wanted to do something both on the big scale of donating shoes to help support a worldly cause, but I also wanted to do something on a smaller scale to help support some local families whom we could touch directly. I committed to Rhonda that we would donate gently used shoes to Shoes 2 Share and that we would also buy brand new shoes for 2 local families and to provide more gifts from a “wish list” for those families as part of the S2S 2011 Christmas “Share-a-Pair” event. I sent an email out to our family of nearly 41 adults and 23 children and within about three days the entire gift “wish list” for both families was satisfied! By the time we had our family Christmas party, where I collected the donations, ALL of the items on both the “needs” and “wants” wish lists had been purchased for these families in one way, shape or form. We also collected approximately 50 pairs of shoes to donate to Shoe 2 Share!
I was overwhelmed by how the whole family embraced this charitable gift project and all generously gave from their hearts to help support complete strangers this Christmas! “Random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty”—as I read before are “those beautiful, faceless, nameless people that do things that help out someone they don’t know and never will”. I’m honored to be one of those people! It was truly an honor to be the one to deliver all of the gifts, nearly 12 bags full of presents for two families we did not know and truly never will … “random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty” … that is what Christmas is all about!! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the entire Hughes & Howard families to you and yours!
Sincerely,
Samantha Hughes
