by Katie Patrick
While most of my days are spent sending emails, reviewing grant applications, discussing financials, meeting with our leadership team, and sending thank-you letters to all of our amazing donors, I had the opportunity to do some direct client service work last week.
At Catholic Social Services, the staff is busy preparing for the holidays, both Thanksgiving and Christmas, hoping to spread holiday cheer through our various food and gift programs, not to mention the increase in refugee arrivals and uptick in requests for financial assistance. It’s an “all hands on deck” season and I was grateful for the opportunity to pause my routine and jump in!
In Lincoln, we are taking requests from 150 households for Thanksgiving food baskets. Our team in Hastings is preparing to serve more than 200 households and our team in Auburn will distribute 40 food baskets. We do our best to fill the baskets with all the traditional fixings and customize it with a $10 gift card for each household to a local grocery store so that they can purchase anything we may have missed, including any item that is of sentimental importance to them at the holiday season.
In addition to Thanksgiving, preparations are also underway for Christmas. In Lincoln, after a two-year pause due to our renovation, CSS is participating once again in KFOR’s Operation Santa Claus Program. From Monday, Oct. 30 until Friday, Nov. 10, we are taking requests from moms and dads who are in need of help buying a toy for their child at Christmas. It’s a unique program that invites parents to meet with community agencies and fill out a request for gifts that their children would like. Last Monday, I had the opportunity to meet individually with these moms and dads and get caught up on all the latest toys and games that kids are into these days! (Admittedly, I had to Google a few of them, like the Mochi Squishy Toy.)
One mom I met listed her four children and the toys they wanted most. Two of her sons struggle academically and are currently at reading levels far below their age. Surrounded by a supportive network of family and teachers, they are making progress and the mom was so thankful for the chance to receive for them something they wanted. For the next three hours, my coworker, Mike Fitzgerald, and I met moms and dads beaming with gratitude and excitement for the holiday season.
That afternoon, I accompanied a client through our client choice Food Market in Lincoln. As we walked through the shelves that were filled with a variety of canned fruits and vegetables as well as fresh produce, grains and a wide variety of proteins, I learned that he is a single dad of three, struggling to make ends meet. For personal care items, he loaded up on tissues and toilet paper. His kids had begged him over the weekend to play outside in the flurries and he relented. The house they live in is small and with three young and active kids, it’s hard to keep them inside. They now each have runny noses, but were able to make memories playing ball at a park near their home.
As we finished shopping, the dad was so thankful for the three bags and two boxes of food that CSS provided him. The amount of food available and the choice that CSS is able to provide our clients is a true blessing. It’s a blessing that we owe to the many schools, churches, Knights Councils, and individuals who respond so generously to the list of our most needed items.
As I helped push the cart of food to his car parked along the side of the building, he shared with me that he was struggling to pay his mortgage for October. He reached out to a few friends, seeing if anybody could help him get by. He said that being able to come to CSS for food relieved a lot of the pressure that he was feeling; it removed some of the anxiety knowing that he now had food to give his children.
It’s an important reminder, I think, when you give this holiday season, to remember that no act of service goes unappreciated, no monetary gift goes unnoticed and no prayer goes unheard. Our communities are filled with people in need and people with the capacity to give, and whether you are able to give a few cans of food or an entire cart full of food, it all matters to the person who needs it most. May God bless you!
