by Amy Duggan, President-elect
Rotary Club of Nantasket-Hull
Rotary Club of Nantasket-Hull
2020 has been a difficult year for many people. Knowing how the holidays can add extra stress to people who are already struggling with their finances and feeding their families, prompted us to do our 2020 Secret Santa Program (aka Project).
We reached out to our local Veterans office and Wellspring Multi-Service Center. In addition, the Hull Senior Center was running a program looking for donations for the senior citizens. Our Treasurer, Jim Pitrolo, made the suggestion to have the club match up to $500 that our members donated, this was voted on and received 100% approval.
Within 24 hours after sending an email to our 28 members, 18 members contacted me to participate. Within five days we heard from another four. I was truly humbled by the response from our members and their generosity
Jim and Karen Pitrolo sponsored the two Veterans who have no family and the only Christmas they would have would be what they received from our club. Each Veteran received warm coats, hats, gloves, warm socks, candy and a couple of gift cards to our local market and to a local restaurant. Craig Wolfe also gave each Veteran a box of food — Jim said the boxes each weighed about 30 lbs!
Wellspring gave us two families to sponsor, both single mothers with children. We had members donate clothes & toys for a baby, clothes and toys for an 8 year-old and clothes and gift cards for a 15 year-old who wanted to buy video games. We also provided the families with gift cards to Amazon, Marshalls/TJMaxx, Target, The Village Market and local restaurants. Craig Wolfe also donated a box of food for each family.
In addition, members also provided new unwrapped gifts for the Senior Center Santa program. We gave four large bags, filled with hats, gloves, scarves, slippers, socks for both men and women. We also had several fleece blankets, playing cards and of course Christmas candy!
Overall, the program was a huge success! We were able to provide members of our community with a little bit of normalcy during all this pandemic uncertainty. What I think is more important than providing gifts to people who would not have had any, is that these people now know that there are members of their community who care about them and they’re not alone.
The true goal of the program was to provide hope and support to people who are going through difficult times.