By Dani Greer
It’s holiday time and as I do every year, I’m watching all those old favorite holiday movies. It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street top the list, followed closely by my favorite version of Little Women starring Katharine Hepburn.
Little Women is all about overcoming our character flaws, and the resident matriarch, Mrs. March, is the penultimate philanthropist when it comes to demonstrating pure generosity and love. The girls are hard-pressed to follow suit. In one poignant Christmas scene, all fore-go their own desires and comforts to create a lovely holiday for their beloved mother. Gifts and dinner are waiting as she returns home from a day of charity work – and what does she do? Talks the girls into hauling the entire bit of loveliness to the poor widowed Mrs. Hummel and her seven orphans so they can have a better Christmas, too! It’s not exactly what the girls had in mind.
This old-time version of adopt-a-family for the holidays is one most of us can’t imagine or have ever experienced. For one thing, our giving isn’t quite so direct in the modern world, and it makes sense when you think about it. Being on the giving end definitely feels great, but it’s sometimes more difficult for the receiver of generosity. Almost every charity is sensitive to the dynamics of giving and receiving, and so adopt-a-family programs tend to be more anonymous than what the Little Women experienced in their small town of Concord, Massachusetts during the Civil War era.
There are various organizations to contact if you decide adopt-a-family is a cause you’d like to embrace for this season. Nearby churches and temples might have a program in place for needy members. Local social services and non-profits are also logical centers to contact. Even your local Kiwanis Club likely has an adopt-a-family program in full swing. All will have procedures in place and probably several levels of giving. These might include:
- Cash donations
- Gift cards for transportation and groceries to be used anytime
- Purchase of specified age-appropriate gift items for specific family members
- Adopting one family and providing all dinner and gifts for members
It will all depend on your family’s level of ability and desire to participate to the smallest or greatest extent. No matter what your level of involvement, know that it is all important to the recipients, and that even if you don’t meet them face-to-face, they will be grateful. Your reward might not be very tangible to you, but it exists and perhaps could be considered part of the gift and lesson you and your family receive during the season of giving – to learn to give from the heart without any thought of a reward in return – not even a personal thank you, without the slightest bit of personal recognition. Learning to give anonymously is one heck of a character builder! It gets easier with practice, and there’s no time like the present to start.
Have you adopted a family for the holidays? Did you go through an organization to do it? Share some of your experiences with us here!
Have you adopted a family for the holidays? Did you go through an organization to do it? Share some of your experiences with us here!
3 comments:
Thank you for this thought-provoking post, Dani. It reminded me that I used to organize an adopt-a-family effort for my investment banking group, so it works not only as a meaningful family activity but also as a terrific team-building, humanitarian exercise at work.
When in high school, our now 27 year old daughter, organized and lead an outreach program that adopted several needy familes in our county. I insisted she only adopt one family, she insisted we had enough resources to adopt 4! With the help of many hands, Christmas was a reality, sometimes for the first time, for 4 families. She (we) did this for 4 years! She will probably tell you that it was one of her better "teaching" lessons to her mother!!
My first experience was during a stint at the telephone company. I was newly single and had to work over the holidays, and was a little bit bummed. The company had organized an adopt-a-child program and I got an anonymous three-year-old girl and had one of the few enjoyable shopping sprees of my life picking gifts. I still remember the sweet little pink snowsuit with knit accessories, and my imagination filled in the joy I never got to experience first-hand. It would be cool if this grown woman still had the books I sent along with the toys! One of my best holiday memories ever. And I wasn't even there. LOL.
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