A 25-Foot Truck of Christmas Presents

Our church has kind of adopted a school in a poverty-stricken, gang-infested neighborhood off the north end of the Vegas Strip. 100% of the kids are on free or reduced lunches. 80% don’t speak English on their first day of school. Every kid lives in an apartment complex (not one student lives in a single-family home). These are kids who mostly won’t get any Christmas presents.

So two years ago Ververs bought a Christmas present for every kid in one grade. Last year we bought a present for every kid in four grades. This year we committed to buying a present AND a new pair of shoes for every kid in four grades. That’s like $6,000 to $10,000 worth of presents and shoes. Honestly, I was very nervous.

But … we did it!  It was amazing. Yesterday we filled up a 25-foot U-Haul, AND several mini-vans and SUV’s with the gifts, and had the pure joy of getting to give the presents to the overwhelmed-with-gratitude kids. Easily one of the best days of my year.

And I am so proud of our church. We have lots of people who aren’t making a lot of money, and a decent amount of people who are out-of-work due to our crap-hole economy, but that didn’t stop anyone from being absurdly generous and letting a bunch of kids know that someone really cares about them.