For Caring Community Friends, it’s one of the best days of the year: the execution of their Christmas Stars program.
Christmas will seem a little brighter for over 200 children and 70 families that are benefiting from the “Hope for the Holidays” campaign that CCF kicked off for the season. The county’s largest food bank was able to provide a full turkey or ham holiday dinner, a backpack full of food, and bags of gifts for everyone on their tree.
Businesses large and small, and other organizations pitched in. The giving began to have a snowball effect; Green Hill Funeral Home, which has been working with CCF for the last five years, put extra efforts into the Hope for the Holidays campaign, doing some shopping for a number of the Christmas Stars. Someone else noticed and asked about it. When they heard what it was for, they contacted their own organization, who then stepped in and donated a bike for every child of age. Other gifts included plush toys for infants and other age-appropriate toys for toddlers and elementary-aged children.
Dr. Camille Teale, the director of Caring Community Friends, told Sapulpa Times they were there to help in every way they could. “We had some families that were facing such awful circumstances. We had a grandmother who had gained emergency custody of her grandchildren and needed help,” Teale said. “We had a mother who lost a five-month-old to COVID. We wanted to be able to provide her with what she needed to give her other 18-month-old child a Christmas while she was grieving.”
The list goes on: A veteran who’s now a single father with three children after his wife died of cancer earlier this year. Another boy, who had only one thing on his wish list: a bed. Of course, CCF delivered.
Other businesses, like Ardagh—the owner of the glass plant on Mission Street—did toy drives to help fulfill the needs of the Stars. Many of the Stars were adopted and completed by individuals. News On Six named the Hope for the Holidays campaign as one of the recipients of their “Six Days of Hope.”
Of course, the gifts and food needed to be delivered. The community came through again: at roughly 12:00 pm, trucks, vans, and even a Sapulpa Fire Truck pulled into the drive at The Way Church off of Taft street. Twenty or thirty volunteers showed up to load up cars and take the food and gifts to the relevant Christmas Star.
“It’s been a huge outpouring of love from the community,” says Molly, an intern with CCF. “It’s just amazing to see the way everyone comes together to give back to these families.”
