As the Christmas holiday draws near, families are feeling the pressure of providing gifts for their spouses and children. With 20% of Asheville's population living at or below the poverty level, many are struggling to put food on their table or gas in their vehicles, much less using additional finances to fund Christmas gifts.
Like with our recent Thanksgiving initiative, AshevilleBlog is reaching out to our community and support those who find themselves struggling or needing additional help this time of year. We want to reach families who may not qualify for other traditional means of support through other local gift giving programs.
Our mission is to equip a minimum of 100 families with gifts for their children and spouses to ease the burden of holiday costs. In a unique twist, instead of handing out generic age appropriate gifts for children, we want to empower the families and make them a part of the gift selection process. Our staff and volunteers will be setting up a shop and inviting families in during set hours to select and gift wrap gifts for their children - completely free.
We have set up several donation stations across Asheville where you can drop off items to be set up in our store. Items for children of all ages, including teenagers, are appreciated. We also encourage items such as blankets, candles, movies, and other items that will allow older children or spouses to gift to each other.
If you are interested in making a financial contribution to allow us to buy items in bulk at a discounted price, you can PayPal money to
Ashevilleblog@gmail.com, or contact us to arrange for pickup.
If you can't contribute otherwise but are interested in volunteering, there will be a signup form available. We need individuals to help run the store, sort items, pick up donations, and do other odd jobs.
The store will be only open for one weekend during limited hours, and more information will be coming shortly. If you or someone interested in applying to be able to shop for free, please fill out this short application (available soon). The more donations we get the more families we can serve.
You can find our donation stations at these convenient locations:
Read More »
Asheville Blog Your Source for all things Asheville
