Yesterday was our annual shopping spree at church. This has been going on for years, but this is the first time I’ve ever helped out with it. Underprivileged kids are brought in – I think the names are supplied by the school district – and we feed them breakfast, then volunteers take them shopping. one on one, to help the children buy gifts to give their families. They come back & other volunteers help them wrap the presents. Then it’s upstairs to the sanctuary for the Christmas story and a sing-along, and then we give them a bag of gifts for them before they leave. Each bag includes a pair of shoes – sizes are provided by their parents ahead of time – and we try them on, and there’s socks, a hoodie, a game, a Children’s Bible, and a huge bag of fruit and candy, among other things. One of the sweetest things was that so many of them put on the gloves we gave them and never took them off again. One little boy even wanted to peel one of his oranges with his gloves on. I didn’t have time to get a picture until we were all completely finished and were waiting for their parents to pick them up. That’s Brayden in the red pants, playing with one of the balls they received with his little brother. He was eleven, and even he seemed so excited about the gloves. He said, I never had gloves. Cue the tears.
