Love for Kids

Well, another weekend has passed and we’re another weekend closer to Christmas!

Garrett shot a Christmas event put on by a local charity, called Love for Kids, for underprivileged children on Saturday. They had over 3,000 kids come and over 700 volunteers. The kids were from Dallas ISD schools and had to be nominated by their teachers to attend. He said he’s never seen kids that are more appreciative or deserving of what these people are doing for them.

Love for Kids was started by a volunteer in 1975 to help with Christmas for the impoverished children after Vietnam. Their annual Christmas party is at his ranch in Grand Prairie and starts in the morning when over 60 school buses full of children arrive at the ranch.

There’s music, games, food, inflatable rides, and everyone gets to tell Santa what they want for Christmas. (This year there were so many kids they had to have three different Santas to be able to get to everyone.) Some children want normal things like video games, but the special requests get noted and actually filled. For instance, one girl asked Santa for a dress so she could be in her church’s children’s choir. That request will definitely be heard.

While the kids are playing, volunteers go onto the school buses and put presents at all the children’s seats so when they get back on the bus to go home they have something to open. For some children, this is the only present they get and they look forward to it all year.

The saddest thing, though, is that a majority of the kids arrive at the ranch in the cold with no coat. Before they go play, they line up and are given new coats for the winter. One kid cried because he had never had such a great coat and was afraid that when he went home, he would get beaten up for it.

When Garrett got home Saturday night and told me about his day, I couldn’t hold back the tears. Yes, the economy may suck. Yes, we may have a house in Florida that we are going through hell with. Yes, we may be driving 14 hours to get home for Christmas because flying is too expensive. But, we have a Christmas tree, and it has presents underneath. We have jackets and sweaters. We even have gloves and hats. Honestly, what more could we ask for? We have so many reasons to be thankful.