I've talked about how proud I am to be a member of Central many many times. I just really am. I am so grateful and blessed to be a part of this amazing community and staff.
Since I am the Global and Local Outreach assistant I get to see all the wonderful things our church does for the community. For those of you that have seen my office you know that my building is quite tiny and most of the time cluttered with overflow from the either global or local projects.
Well, for the past month my entire office building has been packed to the brim with christmas presents. Every year around christmas time we do a couple different projects such as, Project Angel Tree or Adopt-a-Family. The congregation gets together to help out those in need. With the economy being the way it is this year we were quite worried about what kind of response we would get to these projects. I am so proud to say that Central really stepped it up and did above and beyond what we asked.
I've had multiple people come into my office and hand me checks for hundreds of dollars just to donate to help buy these presents. The other day I had a lady come in and tell me how her and her husband struggled all year and then right around this season they had been able to afford all of their bills and provide for christmas for their family. She said they had some extra money left over and wanted to donate it. She stood there and wrote me a check for $200. It honestly almost brought tears to my eyes. This family that could have very well used that money decided to help out someone else.
Throughout the past two weeks we have had nearly 100 families from the community come in to our office to ask for help to provide christmas for their families and we have been able to help every single one. And the church itself didn't have to spend one penny. The congregation provided it all.
It has been worth all of the clutter and mess and dora the explorer dolls to be able to see a smile on the face of a single mother of 4 or a disabled and unemployed father or a women who had to donate her plasma for money just so she could pay her bills.
It's been an amazing and humbling experience and again, I am just so proud to be a staff person and a member here.
