Yesterday we did something different than we have any Christmas' past. We gave up our traditional Christmas morning to go down to the Salvation Army's Christmas Dinner to volunteer at the Phoenix Convention Center.
Luckily the smile you see below from the girls are different than when we first explained what we were going to do.
Todd and I told the girls about this opportunity about a week ago and the response?...... Zoe started to cry wondering why we couldn't just run down the stairs and open presents and the other two acted like they didn't completely understand with questions like "you mean on Christmas Day not another day?? and "Do we have to touch the hobos?" and "I really don't want to do this."
The responses made me more determined than ever that this was something we definately needed to do as a family. The reluctance on my part was that I truly didn't know exactly what we would be asked to do and if it would be a positive experience.
Well.... it was a great experience and I'm absolutely glad we did it! Our sacrifice was minimal with giving up sleeping in and giving up our typical Christmas morning to turning our attention to others who for whatever reason brought their families to the convention center to spend Christmas Day. Maybe they came because they had no other place, some were homeless, some without money for Christmas, some perhaps were lonely, for whatever their reason I am glad we went and focused on others for a few hours.
A picture after our work was done.
It's hard to really get a picture of how big this place was and how many THOUSANDS of people there were. They were expecting over 4000 people to feed on Christmas Day not including the 2000 meals that volunteers took to shut ins.
Kristine taking a break from the printing room to come play some games with the kids.
Nichole and Zoe were "sore" after bending down for over 2 hours picking up bean bags for kids to play while families were waiting for lunch to be served.
Todd and Kristing in the printing room. The families could have one picture taken. The printers, ink and printing paper were all donated. They would print the pictures and take them out to a table where families could pick them up. For some families this is the only family picture they have.
This was before the doors opened and the girls were testing out the bean bag toss.
Waiting for our orientation.
The person in charge told us to go look around the center to see what is available to the families that day. There was a room called the "Room of Joy" that was filled with toys for the kids. Everything was organized by age and gender so that after their lunch they could go in and get a toy. After seeing how many people came we can't imagine that there were enough toys to go around even though it looks like a lot of toys. There were just so many kids.
This is the dining room. It may be hard to see but the tables had nice green tablecloths with a poinsetta on each. Think of it as about 3 cultural halls worth of tables and chairs. They said that there was only one year where they had to turn away people because they didn't have enough food and she said "that will never happen again as long as I am here.. we will send every volunteer to the grocery store if we have to to make sure everyone gets a meal." 
The start of our day.. the end of our morning. Grateful for all that we have.
1 comment:
That is so wonderful that you guys did that! I can see a new tradition in the Pickett family in the future ;-) Very cool! Thanks for sharing; we can all give a little more of our time and energy to others!
Post a Comment