Email
It was only a year ago that an email went out asking for a little help – a few dozen cans of corn and peas – to make the holidays brighter for the families served by the Martineztown House of Neighborly Service.
The email was sent by Wendy York to her considerable list of friends and colleagues. Some of those people forwarded it to friends of theirs. Within a half-hour, all the food had been taken care of and people were moving on to the Christmas gift lists, which were also quickly snapped up by people wanting to help.
Within two weeks, the presents were bought and wrapped, van-loads of food was collected, gift cards were purchased and a big, merry Christmas was delivered to 28 families due to the efforts of about 100 people they had never met. I wrote a column about the feat and referred to how it all came together as “the power of ‘we.’ ”
As you read this, the power of “we” has been at it again, and it’s looking like a holiday tradition is being born.
Earlier this year, Helen Fox, the longtime director of the Albuquerque Public Schools Homeless Project gave a talk about the program to the Albuquerque Bar Association, and York, a former judge and now a lawyer in private practice, was in the audience.
The Homeless Project uses federal funds to enhance the educational experiences of schoolchildren who are in families living in shelters, motels or cars or doubled or tripled up with relatives. The project also relies heavily on donations to give homeless kids and their families, things like toiletries and school supplies and, at this time of year, Christmas gifts.
York listened to Fox’s presentation, and in it she found the beneficiary of her now-annual holiday giving project.
Wendy York, right, host of a now-annual Christmas giving spree, hugs Pam Kileen after Kileen and friends dropped off quilts for homeless families served by the Albuquerque Public Schools Homeless Project. (MARLA BROSE/JOURNAL)
In an email to her list of hundreds this year, York talked about how the project’s good works – it helps 4,000 children – touched her heart.
Fox “spoke about the kids,” York wrote. “The little girl who lived with her mentally ill grandmother in their car and she wanted to be in the spelling bee so they got her spelling books and a flashlight and she won the spelling bee!”
The first half of the alphabet in York’s email list immediately snapped up each of the 33 extended families the Homelessness Project offered up for help, and shopping sprees began: Pants, shirts and a coat for a fourth-grade girl whose favorite color is pink; shoes and shirts for a 12th-grader who loves art; hoodies for a mom and dad; a warm bathrobe for a grandmother. Clothing and other gifts were purchased for 186 people.
The second half of the alphabet got busy on the most basic personal hygiene products that the Homeless Project hands out by the thousands every year. How about a couple thousand bottles of shampoo and conditioner, a few thousand bars of soap, sticks of deodorant and toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste? Check.
How about lip balm, dental floss, sunscreen, body wash, hairbrushes and hair ties? Check and check. Oh, and also bicycles, helmets, books, shoes and pots and pans.
On Saturday, the members of the group gathered as they did a year ago and, fueled by coffee and breakfast burritos and good cheer, they sorted and boxed and wrapped and delivered.
At a banquet last week, I listened as Richard Berry, the mayor of Albuquerque, gave a speech that had heads nodding. Berry talked about the power of a thousand little acts to add up to one big thing. He asked the few hundred people in the hall to stop thinking about doing the big thing, which tends to freeze us into inaction, after all, and just go out and do one small thing.
I’ll echo the mayor’s sentiment, and ask you, if you have the means and think it would feel good to put some “we” in your life, to hold onto that impulse even after the holidays end. As York’s crew has shown us, lots of people pitch in to take care of charities’ needs at this time of year. While holiday giving swells, the need goes on for 12 months every year.
Here’s an idea for a new holiday tradition for the Homeless Project, food banks and any place else you think could use some help: After you and your bank account have recovered from the holidays, say in February or March, or on the Fourth of July, find out what they need and make an off-season donation.
A thousand small things can add up to the power of “we.”
UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Leslie at 823-3914 or llinthicum@abqjournal.com. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal
Reprint story -- Email the reporter at lesliel@abqjournal.com. Call the reporter at 505-823-3914
