Volunteer...It's a good thing!

We've all heard or been told how great volunteering can make you feel, what great things can come from a few hours of your time given to a good cause.
Mark and I have run the Christmas programs at the Drop-In.

This year it has been a bigger commitment but very well worth it.

We run the Sock program. This program is simple. In our homes we all get to have goodies in our stocking on Christmas morning so we make sure the DI residents have one too. We get stuff we mostly don't need or will forget about in a few days.
For the clients we give them a stocking of items they need. Things they will use for a few weeks or even months!
Mark makes a call out to all his volunteers. The big corporate companies, the church groups, the school groups and the individuals. He asks for donations of socks (the ones we use everyday), hygiene supplies, coffee mugs, candy, gift cards, bus tickets...you name it we'll take it!
We then get groups to come in and help stuff the socks. We take one of the socks and stuff it's mate in the toes. We then stuff it with as much stuff as we can fit and deliver to the clients on Christmas morning.

We also run the Wishlist which I have spoken about on my blog before. We just finished entering the stories into the website and as it stands today we have 50% of our clients sponsored. Way to go everyone! Thank you for supporting our clients!

Mark and I have been working morning, moon and night. Gracie has been joining us and she even helps sort some of the donations. It means the world to me to show Gracie the true meaning of Christmas. She loves going to daddy's work! Her eyes go big and she starts to squeal! Too fun!

One thing that was new this year was we entered the stories on the database ourselves. It was amazing to read all these stories but what hit me hard was the interview questions "What puts you in the holiday mood?"

I think people often forget that the homeless are human too.

I think it's safe to say that 60% of the clients said that the thing they enjoyed the most was "the look on kids faces on Christmas morning" and "Kids seeing Santa". Doesn't this warm your heart?
The clients love when we bring Gracie in. They want to play with her, read to her, they sing to her. They offer their own snacks or chocolates just to make her happy and I am happy to bring her in. These people don't get to be with their families, they don't get to see their kids all the time, they miss the everyday things that we all take for granted.

What will you do to help this year?
What puts you in the holiday mood?

There are lots of things to think about...