A Heartfelt Thank You

Every year we are humbled by the generosity of our donors and volunteers. We just wrapped up a very busy holiday season where EVERY Villages’ child, youth and family who requested assistance received support; our older youth, kinship care families, and foster families celebrated holidays thanks to generous sponsors; and our friends and donors were very generous as they financially supported our mission. We recently received a note from one of our families that we wanted to share with you about how grateful they are for the amazing Christmas they had thanks to one of our donors:

I don’t know where to begin. This year [2012] was one of the hardest our family every experienced. A couple of years ago my husband lost his job and had to take another one working below the level he used to work at and for less money. It’s been a struggle but we made it work. Early this year a young boy was placed in our home and while we’ve helped lots of kids during our four years of fostering, this child was the most difficult we’ve ever had. He had a lot of behavioral and emotional problems on top of a few medical conditions that seem to make things worse. He fought us at every turn, but thankfully with the help of our Villages case manager we made a lot of progress with him. But around Thanksgiving he started acting out worse than before and that’s when we discovered that he was take away from his parents at Christmas and he doesn’t like the holidays because of the memory. My husband and I wanted to give him a great holiday but we weren’t sure where to start. We ask The Villages for help and what they did was amazing. They found a donor who pulled out all the stops. I had never seen so many gifts before. They provided food too. I was speechless. On Christmas morning our foster son woke up and saw gifts that filled our entire living room and he was shocked. Then we had a meal with some of his favorite foods. That night when I was tucking him in he said to me “this was the best Christmas ever”. Since the holiday he’s been a completely different boy. He’s been happy and carefree like little boys should. Thank you so much for everything you’ve done to help our family.

This is just one of the many joyful stories The Villages receives every year. We are able to provide camperships, tutoring classes, birthday gifts, and much more every day thanks to people like you! We are humbled every day by the generosity our friends show us. Thank you to everyone who helped make the holidays.