Christmas Blessings

Christmas brings lots of joy, laughter and togetherness to so many. But there are many that it brings stress, anxiety and the worries of how to manage during this holiday season. To make a difference, Shepherds Works and their great donors provided over 200 wrapped gifts to many families to help ease some of the stress and worry.

We received so many lists from families and children that wrote their own lists. Some were so heartwarming. Many children only wanted to give mommy or daddy something special. No worries, Shepherds Works took care of many parents also. From the day after Thanksgiving to December 18th we spent our time shopping and wrapping so that on December 19th we could bring those smiles to so many.

The day came and we rented a U-Haul to load up all the presents and we were on our way! Each stop we made there were so many parents that wanted to thank all of you that helped them make this Christmas a special one. The smiles on their faces and the laughter and giggles from the children made this all worth it.

There is also a special family up north, whom want to be anonymous, that donated their time and money and their giant hearts to purchase presents for a family that lost their son to gun violence a couple months before Christmas. This family was devastated! This family needed so much love, support and healing. Our “up north” family took action and worked with us to get lists and try and give this family a little happiness for the family. They had big lists as children would and what was expected was that we choose a few things from the lists. But the “up north family” made their dreams come true in a huge way! Not only were lists all taken care of, but a tree with all the decorations, stockings, and everything you need to decorate was donated. It in no way can replace the loss in this family, but for a moment it let them breath and have some joy that was so needed.

We also worked with Ms. Raina Quinnell, a teacher that was one of our recipients of our “Adopt a Teacher” project. She reached out to see if Shepherds works could help make two families smile this year. We connected her with the Minneapolis Police Federation, as they reached out to us and wanted to donate 500.00 to help. The MPLS Police Federation and Ms Quinnell took one of the families shopping to pick out what they needed and Shepherds Works matched their donation so that Ms. Quinnell and her roommate could go shopping for the other family and be our elves and deliver presents and smiles.

All of our thanks to all of our donors, as it was all of you that made this possible!!