For nine years now, Trinity has shared Christmas love with others by participating in Angel Tree, helping families stay connected through difficult circumstances during the holidays. By reaching out to these families and providing a few basic needs, some gifts, a connection to an incarcerated parent, and a message of hope, we pray we can help bring someone one step closer to Jesus. Trinity Shares Christmas through the generosity of so many Trinity family members and friends, who brought gifts and food – along with an invitation to visit Trinity – to ten Angel Tree families plus two additional families who needed some extra care this year.
The Angel Tree initiative is a ministry of the Prison Fellowship whose mission is to restore lives by responding to God’s call to serve men and women behind bars. Prison Fellowship believes whole-heartedly that every person is made in the image of God, and that no one is beyond His reach. That means there is hope for restoration and healing for prisoners, their families, victims, and all those who have been impacted by crime. Through the Angel Tree initiative, an incarcerated parent can sign up their family to participate. Through partnerships in the community, children receive gifts from their incarcerated parent, the family recieves food and additional resources for Christmas, and the incarcerated parent is able to provide for their family even while away.
Although the Angel Tree program asks only that we supply one gift per child, Trinity provides two gifts for each child, food for a Christmas meal, and a Publix gift card for the caretaker.
Glenda Frazier, our Trinity Shares Christmas Coordinator, shares the impact this experience has had on her:
A special thank you goes to Trinity’s Garden of Discovery class and its teachers, Miss Wendy and Miss Jacqui. The class learned about sharing Christmas joy by adopting one of the Angel Tree families and, in addition to supplying even more gifts, decorated a little Christmas tree with their own hand-made ornaments and created and signed a Christmas card. After saying “Thank You!” and “This is so amazing!” countless times upon delivery, the mother also texted her thanks:
This really touched our heart, thank you soooo much, I really appreciate it, God bless you all, Merry Christmas. Please do send our blessings … you guys literally made our Christmas!!!! BTW beautiful art work on tree, we love everything!!!
We were humbled and honored to be a part of the Angel Tree Project this year. Our entire classroom adopted a family from the Angel Tree at church who needed some help this year. The students and their families responded with gifts, food and gift cards to be given at Christmas. The children were so happy to shop for and wrap the gifts. They even made ornaments for the tree and a card for the family that they all signed. We were so proud of our students’ servant hearts and their gentle Christmas spirits.
Thank you to Glenda Frazier for coordinating this special Christmas Outreach effort! Thank you to everyone who took an ornament and returned your donation – every single item was returned this year! And thank you to all the volunteers who helped with deliveries and other tasks; we appreciate each of you so much: Deaconess Liz, Doug and Dianne Wiley, Paul Soost, Bonnie Roby, Ken and Terry Boggs, Maria Quesada, Ana DeForge, Janine Delehunt, Linda Short, Bill McFadden, and Carolyn Burnette.