Spreading Joy

Making a Difference One Person At a Time One Day At a Time

by

Thank you for Spreading Christmas JOY 2014

Christmas Joy 2014 was a HUGE success all thanks to Y O U and the fact that you have a huge heart for others!

We were honored to invite 85 Children to come to this Christmas party on your behalf! 70 Children were in attendance!  

 

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Thanks to you we were able to offer them a time of great fun, joy and love along with food from Olive Garden for the moms, hotdogs, chips and mac-n-cheese for the kids. We ended our meal with amazing desserts and then took the moms next door for a time of encouragement and shopping for toys for Christmas morning.

 

Your gifts, donations and help provided us the ability to allow each mom to freely shop for 4 gifts for their children to open on Christmas morning!  Several commented that without those gifts, there’d be nothing for their children!  Thank you for your heart for others and helping to have one less child to have nothing on Christmas morning!

 

While the moms were shopping and having fun wrapping the gifts for Christmas morning, the children were having a grand time! The Birth of Christ was told to them, Christmas songs were sung and a fun time of card making was happening!  Thank you for supplying the craft items for these kids! While all of this was going on, our worker elves (other children that have a heart for others) were handing out prizes and gifts for them to have that day!  Barbie dolls, activity pads, paddle balls and lots of other fun small gifts that YOU provided!  Thank you!

 

When all of the moms had finished wrapping their gifts, we invited each child to look through the toys and pick 2 gifts for that day! YES…  T W O!  We wanted them to be able to wait until Christmas to open the others!  Your generous donations allowed us to be able to give them this option!  Thank you for that!

 

After everyone was settled, we instructed the moms to pick up a turkey on their way out!  YOU made that possible as well!  These turkeys were all 10-15lb turkeys!  Thank YOU!

 

As everyone was leaving, we had one more thing for the children that wanted one…a GINORMOUS coloring book.  Hot Wheels, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Frozen and Minions were their choices.  I was so thankful to be able to hug everyone as they left!  Truly one of the highlights of the day!

 

There is no way the photos and videos will show all of the JOY that you provided to these families this day but I hope that you’ll take just a few moments and look through them.  Look at the smiles, look at all of the toys and know that no matter what part you had in this that it was HUGE!

 

Thank you for spreading Christmas Joy to these families!

Thank you for having a heart for others!

Thank you for caring and taking that to another level by showing compassion!

Thank YOU!

 

By the way, just so you  know the joy didn’t stop on this one day.  Thanks to you we were able to help an additional 20 Children have a better Christmas!  We took time to distribute toys over several days before Christmas!  

 

Christmas Joy isn’t about one group, organization or person making a difference.  It is about a LOT Of us bringing what we have, bringing our gifts, our voices and our talents to the table to make a difference.  We are all blessed in different ways and all have different resources available to us. 

When we combine those resources, the results are simply outstanding!  We can’t do everything, but we can do something!  Something is ALWAYS better than nothing.

Thank you to the following groups and organizations that made Christmas Joy 2014 a complete success!  This list is completely random because I’m a random kind of gal.

 

  • The many individuals who made financial donations to provide gifts for the children
  • My Assistant, Angie Blevins who faithfully mailed out letters and sent emails all year long asking individuals and Corporations for donations.
  • Those that support us on a monthly basis, allowing us to make a difference and impact hearts all year long!
  • Companies that collected toys for us.
  • Organizations that Sponsored us
  • Radio Interviews to spread the word about Christmas Joy – Racmanchristianradio.org & Cowboy Wisdom
  • Kelly and Cindi who texted, facebooked and nagged people (with JOY of course) to give gift cards, toys and such for the kids for this event
  • The many others who used their Voices over all of their Social Media Networks and share, liked, retweeted the links daily, asking for donations.
  • The awesome group of volunteers who came and helped with set up on Friday and everyone who showed up on Saturday to make this event run smoothly!
  • To those who covered us with prayer, knowing that the power of prayer grabs the heart of God and His power is limitless.
  • Anyone or any group that I’ve forgotten. It’s not my intention to leave you off, but I’m old and have lots of craziness running through my mind at any moment of the day.  You matter and without you, we’d be lost.

As you can see, without everyone working together there would be no Christmas Joy!  Thank you seems so small compared to the mile wide smiles we witnessed and the ginormous hugs we were given! 

 

 

I hope that if you’ve never attended one of these events, that you’ll be able to come and witness the JOY, laughter, love and compassion for yourself one day!

To view photos of toys, smiles and even some thank you cards – please click here

http://instagram.com/spreadingjoyandlove

Here are a few photos, please take a moment and Retweet these if you are on Twitter so that everyone can see the heartfelt thanks from these kids!

 

no joy like spreading joy

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Comments

  1. 1

    Marie,
    What beauty it is to see joy spread! Especially at Christmas. 🙂 You are sharing the love of God with so many and it is inspiring not only those you directly touch – but those who watch from the sidelines. 🙂 May your 2015 be one filled with dreams come true and bigger dream-seeds planted. 🙂
    brandi recently posted..Glory, Glory! {Chapter 8}

    Reply
  2. 3

    Marie,

    Wow, it looks like the event turned out beautifully! I love looking at all the smiles in the pictures and the super cute thank you cards they made! 🙂 Such an awesome (and much needed) event, thank you for the HUGE heart that you have for these families and children and all the hard work you put into Spreading Joy! You make the world such a better place 😉 Also thanks for the shout-out lol. Can’t wait to add all the new pictures to the appeal letters going out in 2015 🙂

    Reply
  3. 5

    Joy! What joy it brings to see the smiles on the faces, Thank you for what you have done in the lives of others and what you continue to do. You are blessed to be a blessing and you indeed are blessing by sharing joy. May God continue to bless you and your ministry. #bloggercaregroup

    Reply
    • 8

      thanks Barbara! I’m honored to be part of such a great ministry that cares about kids and their family at such an important time in the year!! thanks for reading and stopping by!

      Reply
  5. 9

    Thank you for sharing this review. It seems like a very interesting book to read. I’m always looking for good reads. #BloggerCareGroup

    Have a blessed day.

    Reply

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