1100 toys, 1100 smiles, 1100 children, 1100 graces. You are making our holiday miracle happen!

Christmas Miracles Yes, we can check off Christmas Miracles once more this year, thanks to you! We are busy filling the stockings for the last of our children but it looks like every request we received is going to be filled. The holiday elves here at Covenant to Care for Children are working as quickly as they can to meet all the Christmas wishes we have on our list, we have checked that list twice, and we expect to finish in plenty of time to meet Santa’s requirements.

Christmas lives in each one of you who donated, collected, delivered, crafted, and purchased toward our goal of  thousands of holiday gifts (our head elf isn’t ready to talk numbers with me yet). In almost every case the gift you provided will be the only Christmas gift that child receives this year.

I will be frank and tell you that our staff and office volunteers like me to stay away from the toys while they are getting everything sorted and out the door. I tend to pick up a toy and start playing with it. I imagine that to our CCC elves, I am a bit like a very tall 5 year old enthusiastically in the way, well meaning but rather disruptive.

Still, even I can help… I opened a box containing books from the Twilight Series. Our volunteers did not know of this series but I was able to tell excitedly how great a gift this would be fort a 14 or 15 year old girl. Marina, our CFO and much better at the elf thing than I am, said “oh wait… I think we have a girl that age that asked for some sort of book.” She pulled the request out of our big pile and sure enough there was the note requesting “New Moon” for a 15 year old girl in Middletown.

I cannot tell you how often this happens. A child will have a very specific request and within moments of our coming to that request in our big pile of requests, the very item will appear, Christmas magic indeed.

Could we have done it without you? No, it is all about your contribution. You made the difference, you made the miracle and the magic.

When I was a little girl, I always imagined a smile on the baby Jesus as he noticed the animals and people surrounding his manger crib. In my mind’s eye, there was a twinkle in his eyes and a glow of innocent joy on his face. He knew instinctively as a baby always does that the people and small gifts around him meant he was cared for and loved. It did not matter to the baby that he was in a manger.

Now I sit in my office looking through my door at the piles of toys and other gifts being prepared for delivery, I imagine the smile on the face of each child who will get a gift from us (from you). I can see the twinkle in the eyes and the glow of innocent joy, and I know that each child will in that moment know that they are cared for and loved;  it will not matter for that moment where they are, only that they are and that Christmas has come to that place.

Thank You,

Caryl Hallberg, Executive Director

Hear the WNPR radio show feature about our Toy Drive >>