Staff of Life

"The Staff of Life Storehouse is a nondenominational organization dedicated to working with local government, religious and other organizations to assist individuals meet their needs through principle based assistance.  The organization has assisted hundreds of families in its existence, starting out in Mr. Dodd's garage and expanding.  In 2004, [they] provided 200 families with a week's worth of food including Christmas dinner.  This has been possible through the contribution of thousands of hours by [their] volunteers to purchase, package, and deliver the food, and thousands of dollars by [their] donors."  I have no idea how many families they helped this year.  What I do know is that Steve and Mr. Dodd have become good friends and tried to play an even bigger part this year.  He organized a few food drives (including one at our ward Christmas party) and then took the boys to $5 and Below, a store where the kids could buy toys & gifts for the families to be helped.  Then his scout troop actually helped build boxes, stock shelves, and get the warehouse ready for the volunteers to show up a few days later.

                                    
Friday, December 21st, our family drove out to the warehouse with Grandpa and Grandma Bird.  We were able to get 2 families to help.  The kids chose gifts for all the children and family games to wrap.  As I helped wrap all the gifts, the kids and adults went down the aisles and packed what each family was allotted.  We left after caroling "It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas/Pinecones"(a Bird family tradition), and headed out with our trunks packed.  We caught both families home.

 Emma wanted to be in charge of the Christmas jar.  We started this last year, saving money for someone to give it to before Christmas.  The family with 6 kids was the one we chose.  They could definitely use it.  Another interesting thing was that the teenage boy who was home to accept one of the carloads actually had volunteered for Staff of Life a few years earlier.  Isn't that was this is all about?  I loved thinking that his family had helped others when they could and now in their need, they were receiving a little something to bring some comfort and joy.

Here are my 2 biggest men carrying in the boxes.  

This is one of my favorite traditions of the season!