On Service ...

This Christmas my parents asked that instead of buying them presents, that we all do a service project and then write them a letter telling them about it. Our family thought about this and decided that we would adopt a family. We decided to work in conjunction with the Criminal Justice Club at CWI - I am the advisor for the club. I am going to cut and paste a couple emails into my blog because this was such an awesome experience, I don't want to forget it! This was the email I sent out to our club after we delivered Christmas.

Hello,
I wanted to update everyone on our Christmas service project. As you know, we adopted a family through the juvenile probation department who was in need this Christmas. It was a large family with 8 kids and one on the way. I must tell you that I am so very impressed with our club members.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon wrapping and putting the presents together and then this afternoon Shale, her daughters, Telena and I went with the probation officer to deliver the gifts. I have attached some pictures, we filled the trunk and backseat of the probation officer's car with more boxes in the back of Shale's suburban. We had three gifts for every child as well as a full stocking for each of them. We had a Christmas dinner which included two hams, and additionally, a large box of non perishable food items. We had gently used clothing for the children, gifts for the parents, as well as some money.

As Shale and Telena will chime in, delivering this to their house and meeting this family was an absolute joy. The looks on the kid's faces as they saw us carry in box after box was something we won't forget. They had a Christmas tree up, but nothing under it. The children excitedly unloaded the boxes and suddenly their tree was full. The children were so excited and the parents so grateful. It was so neat, because so often many of us may donate something at Christmas but rarely do you get to see the joy on the faces of the recipients.

From the bottom of my heart I thank those of you who contributed. Students contributed toys, food, clothing, money, wrapping paper, and their time. I know that money is very tight for many of you this Christmas. It truly speaks to your character to serve others. Shale, Telena and I decided today that this is the 1st Annual CJ Club Adopt a Christmas Event, which means there will be more to come! I am so proud to be associated with such a wonderful group of people.

Merry Christmas to each of you. I will see you next semester!!
Stephanie

And the email I sent to my parents:

Hi Mom & Dad,
This afternoon we delivered Christmas to the family that we adopted. As I told you guys this weekend, this is a large family. They are an LDS family and the dad is in the National Guard. Their home was small, especially for a family of this size. The mom homeschools all the kids. My students did a wonderful job of putting together gifts and food for this family. Our family participated in this as well by donating quite a bit of nonperisable food, art supplies, as well as giving the parents a card with $50 in it. We also took the big box of wipes that mom donated.

Thank you for asking us to serve this Christmas and in turn inspiring me to ask my students to serve. Helping this family was inspiring, but so was watching my students serve. Many of them have told me that they don't have much money. One student lost her house this year, many are unemployed, and most are having much smaller Christmases themselves. This did not stop them from helping this family in need. One student of mine has a daughter who is 11 years old. Her daughter came to one of our meetings with her mom when we were talking about this. When they got home that night she told her mom that she did not want anything for Christmas that year, instead wanted to use the money that her mom would have spent on presents to help this family. This girl and her mom put together 9 stockings for all the family. That 11 year old girl isn't getting any presents for Christmas this year because money is really tight. She helped wrap and deliver all the gifts. I just wanted to hug her, not many kids would do that. Another students went out and bought nice gifts for each and every child. When I thanked him, I asked if I could help pay for part of it. He told me no, but that he had been the recipient of a Christmas like this when he was a child and he wanted to give back.

I was talking to Jeff today at lunch and telling him all about these students. As I told him, we gave and gave generosly, but we are still having Christmas and getting gifts. We have the means that we can do both. Some of these students don't have the means to do both and had the means to do one or the other. I am touched by their generosity and their willingness to give when they don't have much to give. We know that we are blessed to have the means to have a nice Christmas with our family and the ability to serve other families.

Merry Christmas - we love you!
Stephanie and the Breach crew

Through this whole project, I think I was most touched by the 11 year old girl, Kendra, who gave up her Christmas to donate to this family. I called her mom the next day and told her that I could not stop thinking about her daughter's generosity and asked if we could go Christmas shopping for her. We did and I heard from the mom the other day telling me that she hasn't seen Kendra that excited in a long time.

What a wonderful feeling each of us in our family had this Christmas season as we truly thought about what we could do to ensure that others have a wonderful Christmas. We have the service bug and I hope to see it continue into 2011.