As we enter the week of Christmas, I wanted to write to thank you for your support of the Pride for Parents campaign this year. Thanks to the generous support of over 50 churches, businesses, individuals, schools, and other organizations we were able to have a successful toy sale this year!
There are many ways to define success in terms of our program but one thing comes to mind right off the bat. A grandmother came into our store this past Saturday. She had been to the store several times over the course of the month, each time looking for a scooter for her grandson. She works the night shift and does not get off until after 11 pm, making it difficult for her to get to the store first thing. Normally, we did not have any scooters left past 10:30 in the morning. On her 3rd or 4th attempt at coming in, I told her that if she came in Saturday morning at 10 am, I would have a scooter waiting for her.
As I was preparing to open the store on Saturday morning, I saw the grandmother standing outside waiting to come in. We had not received a scooter from our previous days’ donations, something that I had expected, so I was a little nervous. Our volunteer group from the Bridge Church showed up a few minutes later and low and behold they had a scooter. Both her and I were very pleased! After she shopped for a while, she noticed that a bike was sitting over in the corner. She inquired about it and quickly called her daughter to see if she wanted it for her son. When this grandmother got off of the phone with her daughter she was in tears because of how happy her daughter was that she was going to be able to give a bike that she purchased to her son for Christmas.
It is not often that you are able to be included on such a precious moment in the life of a family, but I got to be on this day. It was wonderful to see how much joy this family was able to have from being able to purchase gifts for their family. It is a moment that will live within me for a long time and a moment that I wish each one of you could have shared in personally. You do share in the moment because of your support of our program, but I wish you could have seen it for yourselves.
As we begin to wrap things up for the season, there are lots of thoughts and feelings that are going through my mind. I am grateful for the provision that God has provided us with this season and for the families of South Atlanta. I am thankful and grateful that our store will remain open and able to serve the residents of South Atlanta during 2010. I am grateful that we are able to talk about hiring another person from our community, another job for a resident of South Atlanta. Most of all, I am grateful for your support of our program, without which we could not do what we do.
I want to invite you to join us as we move into 2010. We will be opening Community Grounds in the first few months of 2010, we will be producing more CD’s, and will be working on a very special project, a South Atlanta cookbook. Please continue with us on our journey next year, and if you feel so moved, please think about supporting us through donating to our program.
Thank you so much for your support and I hope that you have a Merry Christmas!
Sincerely,
Jeff Delp
FCS Community Economic Development