“I have 50 Christmas mugs filled with hot chocolate and an inspirational verse tucked inside. A lady named Yvonne said you might be able to find a home for them.” I love getting these kinds of phone calls, especially since a coworker and I had just been brainstorming about Christmas gift ideas for our residents. Susan’s cheerful voice and her assurance that there were no strings attached made it easy to say yes and agree to meet her to pick them up. She and her husband had recently moved from Chicago and she was looking for ways to give back to their new community and maybe even find a few places to volunteer.
As a kid, I remembered hearing that it was better to give than receive, but I sure liked getting Christmas presents more than I liked giving them away. Now as an adult, I can see the joy in giving a gift to others, whether it’s giving your time, a donation to a charity, or something special like these mugs that would brighten Christmas morning for our senior residents.
The next day, I met Susan and her husband at the end of their steep driveway. We talked for a few minutes about their new life in Prescott and all the great places they were starting to explore. I thanked her for thinking of us and we figured out that person who had passed my name along was the executive director, Yvonne Napolitano, of the Margaret T. Morris Center. I told Susan how much MTM meant to our family when my mom was there and how meaningful it was that she had passed this gift along to me to share with our residents.
As they loaded up four big boxes of beautifully wrapped mugs, each one decorated with festive bows, she told me more about the gifts she was donating, purchased from a faith-based company she works for called Mary & Martha, and how she was still looking for another place to give. One of her friends had donated a significant amount of household goods and she had promised she would find them a good home. Did I know someone who might be in need? No strings attached and she’d even wrap them for me to deliver. I was beginning to believe I’d met a Christmas angel. I told her I would accept that challenge.
And so the receiver of good gifts got to be the bearer of good gifts. I stopped by Susan’s house a few days later and my truck was again filled with an assortment of wonderful presents, each one labeled with what it was and wrapped in holiday paper and bows. My RAV4 had been magically turned into Santa’s sleigh. As I drove towards my office, thinking about who I might call to see if they could use these gifts, the “People Who Care” sign popped into view. Those three words seemed to sum up this gift situation perfectly, so I made a quick turn and hurried into their office.
Their executive director, CJ Meldahl, graciously welcomed me into her office. They are in the midst of collecting gifts for their “Holiday Cheer” program. In 2019, they had 45 seniors on their list, but now the need has grown exponentially and they are delivering gifts to 216 seniors, over half of them in their 80s and 90s, who have no family or friends nearby to spend Christmas with this year. Last year, one of them said to her, “I just can’t believe anyone would do this for me.”
She helped me unload my sleigh and we talked about the never-ending need for more volunteers to help support their mission to serve. I told her I had someone in mind who would be a great volunteer, someone with a big heart and amazing gift-wrapping skills who just moved to the area. And as I got back in my car to drive away, I turned up the Christmas music on the radio and thought about how full my cup of joy is this season and the many acts of kindness I get to witness each day in this community.