Home Ways to Help Christmas

This Christmas Season


Christmas is a wonderful season of the year for us at Partners in Hope.  We have so many natural opportunities to offer kindness, love and community with people we meet.  Many folks who are homeless or struggling with addictions find this time of year very painful and we have numerous opportunities to be extended family and bring joy and a sense of belonging to folks who, for various reasons, cannot be with their families at this time of year.

 

We believe that, by offering practical help and emotional support, we can transform the lives of our society's most vulnerable people and families. Will you help us change lives for the better?

Christmas Calendar


CHRISTMAS EVE MEAL:  For many the point of contact with people in this season is a meal together at our house on the holiday.  Our house is packed on Christmas Eve for turkey dinner.  Then we all go to church together to remember whose birthday it is that we are celebrating.


CHRISTMAS DAY, COMING HOME FOR THE HOLIDAY:  Many have no place to go on Christmas Day and we open our doors and invite them to “come home.”  It’s a different group that day than on many other days because so many of our usual folks have already re-established contact with their families and are with them for Christmas.  So, on Christmas Day we offer an afternoon buffet with games and music and movies and just a “hanging out together” time. 


CELEBRATING NEW YEARS’:  New Year’s Eve we celebrate and have a lot of fun with people who used to think they could only have fun if they were high on drugs or loaded with alcohol.  Again we have a buffet dinner, play games, watch the New Year come in around the world.  Shortly before the New Year comes here we gather in the den to sing some songs, reflect on how we’ve grown during the past year and to offer our lives in the new year to God in gratitude for all He’s done for us.

Christmas Celebrations


GIVING GIFT BAGS:  But many cannot join us for those events because they are in prison or they are “out and about” so we go to meet them and take gifts to them to let them know they matter and that they are loved.  Last year we prepared over 700 gift bags to share with women in prisons, individuals in drop-ins, members of the food co-op, and friends who are part of Partners in Hope events throughout the year.  My mother sews hundreds of drawstring cloth bags that we give to many folks.  We pack the downtown bags in plastic because it’s often raining on Christmas Eve.  It’s incredibly meaningful to enter a shelter with dozens of men on mats  with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and to offer them a gift bag and sing a Christmas song with them. 

Handing out Gifts


GIFT WRAPPING NIGHTS:  In order to get ready for all that we purchase, wrap, and package gift items.  We schedule several nights where people come to help us wrap and wrap and wrap.  People who come for the first time often ask, “Why do you wrap tooth paste and tooth brushes?”  for example.  Then when we stop to pray and bless the gifts, someone will tell a story of how meaningful it was to them last year or a couple of years ago when they received one of those gift bags and they had something to open for Christmas.   Those evenings are filled with noise and laughter, work and prayer and many people return from year to year to help because it is such a meaningful time to “give Christmas” to others.

Wrapping Gifts


DONATIONS: We are looking to reach out to hundreds of people who need to know the real meaning of Christmas and the love that God has shown to them in sending Jesus.  As we prepare events and Christmas gifts to share during those events, we wanted to let you know what we are gathering and what we could use.  To make all these things happen we need your help. 

Wrapping Gifts