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THE GIVING WREATH: Sharing Christ’s Love at Christmas
What began as a small Christmas tree with several ornaments through the efforts of Carol and Jerry Jensen more than 20 years ago, has grown into a continued sharing of Christ’s love with those in need through our Giving Wreath.
Our parish’s Social Concerns Committee now oversees the project, led by Christy Holm. The Giving Wreath has grown to the distribution of gifts through nearly 900 tags. The project helps eight Quincy social service organizations. The names are not publicized for confidentiality.
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“I contact each organization and they submit lists of needs and some wants of their clients,” Christy says. “The organizations submit their ‘wish list’ to us and we take these and apply them to the tags that we set out.”
Labels are made and attached to tags that are set out in the Narthex of the church just before Thanksgiving. Parishioners take the tags and buy the item on the tag. They wrap it and attach the tag on the outside to return the gifts to the Narthex on the designated weekend.
“Our school is involved also,” Christy says. “The children in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade color the tags that we attach the labels to. The organizations pick up the gifts and distribute them to their clients. A group of volunteers from the eighth grade help them load the gifts into the agencies’ vehicles.”
The Giving Wreath has had between 700 to 980 gifts distributed each year for the past years since the project began more than 20 years ago.
“Giving of ourselves and loving others is what stewardship is all about,” Christy says. “This is a great way to go beyond our church and share God’s love with the community.
For myself, this is a way to help others in a concrete way and share God’s love. I visualize Jesus’ love wrapped up in each gift to be sent to a family! It is truly a sight to see all of the generosity and love of our church community wrapped up and sitting in the Narthex!
“Everyone feels the need to help people who are in hard times,” Christy adds. “It is difficult to find a meaningful way to do this. The Giving Wreath fills this need.”
