Makes me want to shout!!  Never in all my living days did I ever imagine we would get to be Santa’s helpers, but that is exactly what happened this month at Buckner International.   When we heard the December assignment – to bag toys for needy children – I  was beyond excited.  How cool is it to get to bag Christmas toys?  If I had known I was going to get to be Santa’s helper, I might have worn an elf suit.

Here is how it works.  Qualified families within a five mile radius of the Buckner International facility register for assistance.  The families are given a card.   Four times a year they come to the center and receive help.  Their card is punched each time it is used.  For the toy drive, they also have to register and list the children’s names, their gender, and their age.  This is well organized, and the families will come at specific times to collect their toys.  Our job was to pick a “big” toy, a “medium” toy, and a stuffed animal for each child.

There were stacks and stacks and stacks of toys.  Generally the toys were sorted by gender and age.  Most of the toys came from Toys for Tots.

Be still my heart – I am here to tell you that I was very impressed with the quality of the toys.  They were good name brand toys.  People who gave were generous.  It was like going to a toy store.  It was not too difficult to find toys that we thought a child would like.  Making sure each child within a family got “equal” was a little difficult.  We took our job seriously.

Linda and Nancy are choosing toys.  Each sheet listed the children in the family, and then the toys for each family were put in one giant humongous industrial bag.

Ann made sure we didn’t forget the stuffed animals.

There were so many choices of stuffed animals.  Fun, fun, fun.

The bags were then twist-tied, and the information sheet was stapled to the bag.

The gigantic bags were placed in super gigantic boxes that were labeled according to a certain pick-up times.

See that second row of boxes on the right?  Those boxes are filled with toys.  Impressive isn’t it?  And it is also sobering to realize how many needy families there are in one five mile radius here in Dallas, Texas.

Talk about getting to experience the joy of Christmas, because others gave.  It was a blessing.

Blessings to you and yours,

We will be returning to Buckner International to volunteer again in January.  Join us if you can.