Every year our church participates in an event that has a huge impact on the families in our parish. Bishop Elementary school is just a few blocks from our building and many of the families there are not able to buy gifts for their kids at Christmas. This, of course, is a window into the deeper, more systemic issues of poverty in our neighborhood. The Christmas Store allows us to provide for a real and immediate need in our community but also to build relationships that can help with the lasting, long-terms needs they face. It’s one of my favorite events of the year.
There are two primary ways that people can be involved:
- Volunteer at the store. On Saturday, DEC 8 over 100 volunteers will descend upon Bishop to set-up, facilitate, and tear-down the Christmas Store. These volunteers will also help with childcare, wrapping, and a variety of other things. It takes a village to pull this off and we need your help! Click here to sign up.
- Donate Christmas gifts. The store that we create in the gym at Bishop is made up of gifts that each have a value of $25. We sell them to families for $5 each with gives them the agency to buy their own gifts but at a rate that is affordable to them. In order to make this happen we need hundreds of gifts for kids ages 0-18. Think creatively about this! Some people get their co-workers and neighbors involved. The more gifts we collect the more families we can bless this Christmas.
Please drop off gifts on Sundays from 3-7PM at 3220 S ACOMA. We hope to see you there on the 8th!