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Holidays Made Special Thanks To Dedicated Volunteers
By: Joan Gabrielson, Executive Director
Photo: Angela Kersten – Monarch staff member (now the campus supervisor)
Our girls are starting the 2012 New Year feeling very special thanks to the caring, hard work and thoughtfulness of so many wonderful volunteers! No girl can feel forgotten or unimportant when they are greeted with home baked Christmas cookies, chocolate covered strawberries, cosmetics and toiletries which were brought to them by our neighbors in Summit Park Town Homes. These good neighbors raised over $1,800 and presented Genesis Cottage girls with gift bags for each girl (compliments of Dillard's department stores), a brand new 37 " flat screen TV, art supplies, spa items, dental hygiene supplies, books, movies, and much, much more. Genesis girls loved Veda White's annual tradition of giving a cottage a Christmas Pickle - a hallmark game which children play to see who gets to open the first Christmas gift.
More News...
A very special and unique holiday request came from a grandmother of one of our Community Based Students. Her granddaughter, our student, had learned to play a few chords on a guitar while working with her Excelsior therapist. After discharging from EYC, this student still wanted to play guitar, but didn't have the resources to continue her hobby. Her Grandmother reached out asking if we could help. We sent out an appeal and within 20 minutes 2 volunteers responded! Julie Jackson purchased a guitar and guitar kit for her while Tiffany Hackett donated enough money to buy this student sheet music to get her started.
More Good News...
The holidays were filled with parties, goodies and fun activities thanks to so many caring volunteers, like our special friends with the Eastern Star. Our Paws 4 Trust Canine group hosted a festive reunion party for all students. The party included a Bernese Mountain dog pulling a decorated wagon with presents inside! The Life Source Adventist Fellowship Church hosted a spectacular holiday party with their students and made homemade stockings for all the girls. Our girls loved baking holiday cookies and playing games with the employees at Jeppesen. The U-Hills Optimist Club came to campus to help celebrate the holidays and delivered a gift bag for 18 students.
Even More Good News...
The kind staff at the Olive Garden at Southlands set up a giving tree in their restaurant lobby for patrons and staff to donate, resulting in $1,600 in presents for our girls! UPS has been so generous to our girls over the years. This year they really 'delivered' with Christmas gifts to the girls in their adopted cottage. Ahmani Noble and her classmates gathered enough resources to purchase much needed items for their cottage. CASA worker, Shannon McCoy, and her friends bought gifts for the girls in their cottage. Plus, they made sure our newest four students also had personal gifts to open on Christmas morning. Jaclyn Edwards and her friends gathered the funds to adopt a cottage and hosted a holiday card making activity. Fun, arts and crafts projects brighten the holidays and teach our girls healthy leisure time activities.
Can You Take More Good News...
Our Adopt a Cottage program volunteers made sure each cottage had a festive holiday season. Laurie Wronski and her Bunko club adopted the Day Treatment students and purchased holiday gifts from the girls' Christmas lists. The Zonta Club of Denver II hosted a holiday party in the Excelsior cottage they adopted. Zonta members spent the evening enjoying treats and making homemade Christmas stockings for the girls to hang in their cottage. Little did our girls know that Christmas morning their stockings would contain special gifts purchased just for them by the Zonta volunteers.
Even More?..
The staff of the Cherry Creek School District Administrative Offices adopted 40 Excelsior students and responded to their holiday dreams with presents from their individual wish lists. Another cottage was adopted by the Colorado STARS Swim Team who had 40 people come as a group to personally deliver their presents on a Saturday morning in December !!!! Having other teenagers visit during the holidays really helps our girls know that they have friends in the community who care about them. Light of the World Catholic Church adopted many students, buying them very nice gifts and showing the girls how much they care.
Lastly, But No Less Important...
It was overwhelming to experience the generosity and empathy from so many in our community like the members of the St. Thomas More Angel Tree Project who gifted our girls with presents for 40 students. Two girls without families were adopted by Wendy Comeaux and her family who opened gifts with both girls and stayed for a personal visit. Erika Sauerwein and her friends adopted the Edge Point cottage and bought gifts not only for the girls but also bought gifts the whole cottage could use. The Panorama Orthopedics and Spine Center adopted the holiday wish lists for those 6 newest girls who moved to EYC just days before the holiday. Warm sweaters, new socks, teddy bears, cosmetic supplies and brand new books were given to our girls by The House District 39 Democrats Committee. Our new girls who are feeling pretty apprehensive their first day were greeted with small bottles of shampoo, crème rinse, tooth paste, lotion, bubble bath and more all thanks to our friends at Holy Love Lutheran Church. And, how fun it was on these cold days for 22 girls who received their very own cozy fleece blankets, thanks to the generosity of Peg and Ken Ohlander.
Thank you to all of these caring people who made our girls feel so important during the holidays.
Happy 2012!
