My heart is full, and so is the back of my car. Over the past few weeks a delightful combination of people and congregations, from three different denominations, have come together to make Christmas easier for the people we serve at Walking Together.
It began in September, when The Rev. Deacon Dianne Wilson and I had a conversation about the holidays. We knew that there might be a second wave of coronavirus, so the almost annual Christmas Eve party at Walking Together was likely going to be impossible. Each year we had festive food, extra toiletries and warm hats and gloves to give away. We had candy canes and Christmas cookies to share with everyone. If we can’t bring people to the party, maybe there was a way to bring the party to the people?
We began talking about the needs of the community at Christmas with the individuals and parishes that support us. Church of the Holy Spirit in Sutton collected hand warmers for us—hundreds of hand warmers. St Francis in Holden gathered gloves and food and toiletries. Immanuel Lutheran in Holden provided hygiene products. Clinton Presbyterian gave us gloves and hats and warm socks, as well as lip balm and other goodies. Church of the Good Shepherd in Clinton gathered still more warm socks and hats and gloves. Friends provided everything from little tubs of Vaseline to candy canes to homemade cookies.
Over the course of a few days, we gathered in small groups to package hygiene supplies and food parcels, and to assemble backpacks with warm hats and gloves and socks, hand warmers (and toe warmers) and other materials. Over 100 backpacks were filled, and have started to go out to the community.
Some are distributed at our storefront door. Even as we started filling the backpacks there were hopeful faces looking in (and yes, we made sure they left with a gift.) Others have been loaded into the back of our cars to give to those in the community who do not make their way to us. People who stand on street corners, hoping for a few dollars, people who gather under railroad bridges at night, folks who sleep in tents in the underbrush, or on friend’s floors—these are the people who receive these gifts.
And they receive them with deep gratitude. I gave one of the backpacks to a young woman I have come to know. I told her the backpack was full of good things, and she opened it eagerly. She found the food parcel right away, but when she found the warm socks, she cried. “You don’t know how cold my feet get,” she told me. A bright green backpack carried love and hope, as well as food and warmth. May all of us know that same love and hope, and may we appreciate the food and warmth that we so often take for granted.
