Looking for Santa's Helpers to Adopt a Needy Greensboro Child for Christmas

Christmas is almost here and Greensboro’s neediest children are hoping to be ‘adopted” by a generous Santa’s Helper. Are you one of these people?

I am doing one of my favorite things again this year: working as a Volunteer at the Salvation Army on their Christmas Angel Tree Program. We took applications of families needing help making their children’s holiday more bright in late October and early November. We are now in the process of finding Santa’s Helpers who wish to adopt a child or a family.

This is how the program works for you who are new to it. First we take applications of families who MUST prove their, how shall I say this, poverty. On this application we take all data concerning the family like address, phone, monthly income from all sources and monthly required out go. Then comes the good part; we list the children in the family along with their ages, sizes and what they would like best to receive for Christmas. We caution the parents who of course are applying to be reasonable in their request for toys and most are. We ask them to limit their request to under $50 per child. Most requests are far below that figure however.

At this point we simply wait for prospective Santa’s to call us. When they call people tell us exactly what they want. The number of individual children or if a family, the number of children in the family. You can further personalize your request by specifying the age and sex of the child or children. Some people have even specified that they want children who want certain toys. Last year I got a request from a gentleman who had purchased 4 bikes at Wal-Mart’s Black Friday when they were on special and he wanted two boys and two girls who wished for bikes for Christmas. I dug thru the files and found him two families that fit his specifications.

Since it is sometimes difficult to get thru to us by phone I am offering to take any applications for a child or children or a whole family by e-mail. Then I will personally see to finding a good match for your request.

e-mail me at BBowers6@triad.rr.com Please give me your name and telephone number so I can call you when I have found the match you requested. Then specify how many children can be in the family or how many individual children you would like. If you have a preference for ages or the sex of the child/children tell me. If you want to give certain toys like the gentleman last year please tell me. Be sure to specify what price range you plan to spend on each child so I don't send you a child with a wish more expensive that you plan to spend. And remember, if you adopt a child then what you give them is absolutely ALL they will receive from any source. I say this because if you plan to spent only $10.00 which really won’t buy much, perhaps you can go together with some friends and adopt a child together.

When I have your e-mail I will go to the files and carefully choose a child or family for you. Then I will phone you and tell you what I have found. At that point you will give me your address and I will send all the information you will need to see that Christmas is nice for the child or family.

Note: When you adopt an individual child/children you will be asked to return the gift bag ( included in your package) to the Salvation Army warehouse so we can deliver all the packages for that child’s family at one time.

If you adopt an entire family we will send you all the information about the family including their phone and address. You may wish to contact the parent for some reason and this is fine; they are YOUR family. We will no longer have this family on our Active Roster. You may choose to delivery your gifts directly to the family. Or, if you wish to remain anonymous you can bring the gifts into the Salvation Army warehouse and we will contact the family to come pick up their gifts.

If for some reason you change your mind PLEASE contact us so we can put the child/children or family back in the active file.

I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving, Brenda Bowers