The true spirit of Christmas
Yesterday was a great day.
After much debate and lots of planning, we finally gave the girls in our hogar their christmas present that was donated by our family and friends. About a month ago, I had heard that many of the girls that live in the Hogar and we hang out with everyday had no families to go home to on Christmas, this is for a multitude of reasons. Court orders that say that they can not see their families, both parents are deceased or incarcerated, and so forth and so on. The hogar stated that this year there was no extra money for Christmas presents. Shortly after hearing this, they had their bi-annual birthday party, where the girls with birthdays from June through November had one celebration in early December with an array of junk food, cumpletos, and each girl recieved a present, one bottle of shampoo. After witnessing their birthday party and seeing how happy they were even though they may have been celebrating their birthday months after it happened and only recieving something that was necessary, I knew we had to give something special to these girls for Christmas.
I sent around an email to friends and family asking if they wanted to give a little extra this year to someone they never met, and explained the situation. I was home for Christmas when my mom showed me the pile of cards that had come in the mail after my email, gifts ranging from 10.00 to 50.00...my heart cracked open. People can be amazing. Between myself, the other two volunteers and a chilean friend, we ended up with 235,000 milion pesos (about 470.00). We were overwhelmed! We learned the 9 girls that were in the worst situation in the hogar and decided to give each girl a 20,000 milion peso note and bring them out to lunch or dinner along with a shopping trip.
Yesterday, four of the nine girls were available to go, and after a few tears from girls that of course didnt quite understand why they were not being asked to attend the field trip, we brought them into our VE room and handed out the presents. Little tokens from New York State adorned the beautifully wrapped christmas bags, and inside we showed each girl the hand made gift certificates we had done. I thought I was going to rebreak my foot...they exploded. Jumping, crying and hugging us, we were on the verge of tears as well.
We ventured off to the mall and for three hours had smiling, happy, bouncy, normal teenagers who stared at the cute boys, tried on tank tops, dresses and flip flops and filled shopping bags with make up, jewelery, lotions, perfumes, clothes...and so on. They ordered whatever they wanted from the food court, of course two still ordering cumpletos even with a multitude of choices!
It was an amazing day, one of those times you know you will remember forever, and without your generosity and kindness this year, these kids would have not had the opportunity to forget for a day that they live in an orphanage and had no where to go on Christmas this year. Instead we celebrated properly by shopping and letting them be teenagers. I haven't received that many hugs in the longest time. We all went home smiling more that night and being happy to be alive.
After much debate and lots of planning, we finally gave the girls in our hogar their christmas present that was donated by our family and friends. About a month ago, I had heard that many of the girls that live in the Hogar and we hang out with everyday had no families to go home to on Christmas, this is for a multitude of reasons. Court orders that say that they can not see their families, both parents are deceased or incarcerated, and so forth and so on. The hogar stated that this year there was no extra money for Christmas presents. Shortly after hearing this, they had their bi-annual birthday party, where the girls with birthdays from June through November had one celebration in early December with an array of junk food, cumpletos, and each girl recieved a present, one bottle of shampoo. After witnessing their birthday party and seeing how happy they were even though they may have been celebrating their birthday months after it happened and only recieving something that was necessary, I knew we had to give something special to these girls for Christmas.
I sent around an email to friends and family asking if they wanted to give a little extra this year to someone they never met, and explained the situation. I was home for Christmas when my mom showed me the pile of cards that had come in the mail after my email, gifts ranging from 10.00 to 50.00...my heart cracked open. People can be amazing. Between myself, the other two volunteers and a chilean friend, we ended up with 235,000 milion pesos (about 470.00). We were overwhelmed! We learned the 9 girls that were in the worst situation in the hogar and decided to give each girl a 20,000 milion peso note and bring them out to lunch or dinner along with a shopping trip.
Yesterday, four of the nine girls were available to go, and after a few tears from girls that of course didnt quite understand why they were not being asked to attend the field trip, we brought them into our VE room and handed out the presents. Little tokens from New York State adorned the beautifully wrapped christmas bags, and inside we showed each girl the hand made gift certificates we had done. I thought I was going to rebreak my foot...they exploded. Jumping, crying and hugging us, we were on the verge of tears as well.
We ventured off to the mall and for three hours had smiling, happy, bouncy, normal teenagers who stared at the cute boys, tried on tank tops, dresses and flip flops and filled shopping bags with make up, jewelery, lotions, perfumes, clothes...and so on. They ordered whatever they wanted from the food court, of course two still ordering cumpletos even with a multitude of choices!
It was an amazing day, one of those times you know you will remember forever, and without your generosity and kindness this year, these kids would have not had the opportunity to forget for a day that they live in an orphanage and had no where to go on Christmas this year. Instead we celebrated properly by shopping and letting them be teenagers. I haven't received that many hugs in the longest time. We all went home smiling more that night and being happy to be alive.
Comments
Post a Comment