Thank You 2024

Or, a Brief Update on Gifts for Neighbors and a Thank You Note

🦻If you prefer to listen rather than read, I’ve recorded this newsletter above

I have to admit, I awoke in a 4 am panic before But That I Was A Journeyman to Grief was scheduled to be published. Something about the vulnerability of writing with a fresh wound, mixed with the vulnerability of asking for help.

Image from It’s a Wonderful Life

What if no one can donate this year.

What if it’s stupid.

What if I’m expecting too much and I’ve promised too much and I’ll have to go back and say I couldn’t pull together the funds.

What if there’s not enough.

I took a deep breath toward that thing deep down in me. The thing at my center I resolve to get closer to every year. The thing that says it’s okay to fail, but it’s not okay to not try. It’s not okay to fail to Live while you are alive. I drifted back to sleep until my alarm cut through the silence, pushing me into the morning routine. There were already a few Venmo notifications awaiting me then. Shortly before taking my children to school, I got to tell them through tears in my eyes that the world was a place of enoughness. Just a few hours in, I already felt assured that the girls who needed some light this season, were going to be getting everything they asked for on their Christmas lists. And it was because a lot of people said yes when I asked for help.

By two days after publishing I was considering asking my neighbor - who runs Feet of Clay to help women and families out of domestic violence situations, (and was organizing the gifts for this family) - if there was another family we could help as well. But as I thought through it, considering all of you and all of your generosity, I decided…

Let’s gift this family not the bare minimum, not just enough - today, let’s help them feel the world is a place overrun with love and light and abundance.

I was hoping to raise about $500 to cover all of their gifts and gift cards.

In the end, 114 of you donated from your own sense of abundance. And I say that, knowing that most of you are artists for whom monetary abundance is rarely a given. There were:

85 donations between $5 and $25

26 donations between $30 and $100

3 donations between $200 and $500

A total of $3,445.71

I’m crying again writing it down.

We were able to purchase everything on their Amazon wish list and tripled all the gift cards they requested.

The gifts and gift cards getting all piled up

With the additional funds we bought their mother some grocery and food gift cards:

$800 to Kroger, $800 to Publix, $450 to Target, $200 to Popeyes and $180 to Chipotle. The gifts were delivered unwrapped, so mom could wrap them herself for the girls.

And then, with the last bit that came in, we purchased 24 sets of gloves, hand warmers, granola bars and chapsticks which my daughter and I packed in paper bags that we’ve been giving to our unhoused neighbors on these cold days.

This isn’t meant to be a long, meaningful, end of year entry. A simple thank you note to you. I have so loved beginning to write my stories here. Thank you for taking the time to read them. Thank you for having hearts full of empathy that remind me the world is overrun with light and love and abundance.

Thank you for gifting me your wings. There must be a bell ringing somewhere.

Happy New Year. To the stories that have been and the ones to come… Cheers.

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Quote of the Week

You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter. In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider!… And that goes for your too!

~George Bailey in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life

Receipts for goods:

Amazon wish lists plus gloves, etc for unhoused neighbors = $1,028.97

Grocery/Food Gift card total = $2,430

Receipts for all goods purchased and delivered to Feet of Clay for delivery to our neighbors