Gifts

By Holly Gardner, Intake and Resident Specialist

The staff here at Community LINC are just wrapping up our Christmas holiday time period.  What an exciting time to be part of this team! Christmas impacts all of us in very different ways but one thing we do have in common is enjoying the spirit of Christmas and it comes to us every year in many different forms. I have learned that it’s the unexpected and spontaneous acts of love that bless me the most and I do my best to stay aware of that on our busy days.

This year the highlight for me was moving six families into apartments and helping to coordinate Christmas adoptions so that the incoming families were connected with an adopting organization. It’s a huge effort to coordinate the organizations’ need to give and the families’ need for some sort of Christmas Day festivities. It’s a special challenge for those families moving in from shelters the month of December. Christmas can seem daunting as the parent(s) try to establish themselves in a new environment and meet their goals. It was an honor to be part of this process, to see the staff from adopting organizations coming to Community LINC with their gifts, always bright eyed, smiling and so very happy to know they are impacting people in such fun and positive ways. As I was home with my family, feeling very blessed and a little weary too, I couldn’t help but think about our families here at Community LINC. How their winter break was going and how many parents and bright-eyed children we had smiling on this Christmas day.

With a New Year full of new projects and new adventures, I recognize that soon enough the month of December will be back around with its challenges of coordinating the practical side of the holidays. I think on this with an uplifted spirit knowing that the true gifts will again be the unmeasurable ones.