Pestering Pays Off, Merry Christmas to All...

Like last year, we made an effort to help my friend and former missionary companion Sister Felice to meet the needs of the kids in her Head Start Pre-school in Providence, UT.

Last year she e-mailed me the week before Christmas a few specific needs for a couple families. It was easy to tell from her description that there was a major underlying need throughout the whole center and all the families.

With that in mind we decided that this year we would attempt to expand the assistance we could provide and hopefully meet the needs of many more children at the school.

Most these kids, if not all, are children of migrant workers from Mexico. Most of them have nothing when it comes to worldly possessions and live in nearly empty mobile homes.

The kids eat breakfast and lunch at the school and are sent home with food since there isn’t always food to eat at home.

She has told me about how the kids come to school wearing underwear that is 5 sizes too big and full of holes. Some don’t wear any at all.

Another big problem she told me about is how they play outside at recess and get their shoes wet. They come back to school the next day wearing the same wet shoes since they don’t have another pair and parents don’t have a way to dry them.

When my friend approached one of the families about helping with Christmas needs, she was turned down twice and when she asked a third time the mother asked for a singular box of crayons, saying she would not have the money to do that for her children.

With needs like this, it is easy to see how wealthy we are and how easy it would be to help meet others’ needs, especially at Christmas time.

This year in order to help more families and children at this school, we did a used clothing drive in my relief society. We collected boots, shoes and pants. We also got more clothing including shirts, hats and gloves and various other things. It felt really great to have so much stuff to give to this needy preschool center.

In addition, Alyssa’s Dance Studio, Tiffany Dance Company, volunteered to participate in a Sub for Santa and asked if anyone knew of any needy families. I gladly volunteered my cause and the families involved with the dance studio brought in new clothing, toys and blankets. I was overwhelmed with the amount of things that were collected.

Once I got all the things back to my house I looked through and noticed we didn’t have any socks and underwear to give and I knew that was a very basic need the center had. With that in mind I went to work pestering all my friends on facebook to donate children’s socks and undies. The problem was I only had 3 days before I needed to deliver all the stuff.

My goal was to collect 70 packages of socks and or undies for the 70 children at the school. In three days, I never really expected to actually get that many, but you know…dream big.

Once I started the pestering, the donations started flowing in. My mom was one of my biggest donations on the first day and gave me a lot of hope that it might be possible to reach my goal. But the donations didn’t stop with my mom.

My friends past, present and future starting pouring out of the woodworks all bringing underthings to my house. Friends I grew up with, former ward members from several splits ago, even one of my brothers high school girlfriend’s little sister whom I haven’t seen she was 8 (she now claims to be 26) delivered an impressive amount of underwear to my cause. Thanks Mini-Mari!

I also recruited Alyssa’s preschool teacher at Shining Star Preschool to the cause. Once I told her about the needs at this school she was on board. Before I even got home from picking Alyssa up from school she had sent and e-mail to all the parents in her school detailing the need an asking for donations over the next two days. They provided us with nearly a quarter of our donations. Pretty amazing for only two days’ notice.

I must say that during this drive for donations, I was as happy as I have ever been. I found myself walking through parking lots with a big smile on my face. Nothing makes you happier than knowing you are doing something useful that will help people who can’t do it for themselves. Keep that in mind next time you’re sad about something.

I also had people I knew, friends and cousins from Davis County trying to figure out how they could help. I ended up making a stop in Riverdale on my way to deliver the goods where I picked up 19 more packs of underthings.

I was in tears when all was said and done and counted up the packages. All in all in three days we collected 110 packages of socks and undies. That alone is worth about $1500. Do I know some amazing and generous people or what?

I loaded up my van.
I wasn’t sure I could even get all the things into my van, but somehow it all fit. My children wouldn’t fit and they had to spend the day with Grandma after I packed their seats and space full of presents and clothing.

In all, we delivered 110 packs of underthings, 23 garbage bags of new presents and 10 large bins of used clothing, boots shoes and coats and one bike. In all I think we collected well over $5,000 worth of stuff, that might be a gross underestimation, it’s very hard to tell.

Whatever the total, Steve and I were very touched by all the generosity as we backed out of our driveway to begin our trip to Logan.

I know there is some sentiment out there insinuating that Facebook is a colossal waste of time, and for the most part I agree, however, how else could I have reached out to such a vast group in such a short amount of time. In this case, Facebook was what made it all possible. Thanks Mr. Zuckerberg, you're person of the year in my book too.

When we delivered it, the teachers and director of the school were shocked at the amount. We were too.
Here's me and two sister missionaries (Felice and Peters) who coincidenly work at the preschool.

Last year with the help of friends and family we filled the trunk of my car. This year we completely filled my van. Next year I am hoping to have to rent a truck to move the things that we collect.


Keep this in mind next Christmas season as you are looking for a Christmas Charity to donate to. We will be making an effort again next year—so keep that in mind as you do your spring and fall cleaning. Thanks to everyone who helped or wanted to help. If you’re willing we’ll use you again next year.