Project Christmas Promise has a vital job during the holidays — organizing the names of children submitted to Christmas charities, preventing double entries and ensuring no child is passed over.
“We do have children referred, birth all the way up through 18, and we are acting as a centralized agency for people ... to reach out to us and ensure that they are receiving information that is correct, that is non-duplicated, and that has all been verified,” explained program head Becky Winters, AmeriCorps director in the Poplar Bluff R-I school district.
Project Christmas Promise gets children referred to them from county schools as well as programs like Head Start and South Central Community Action Agency. The numbers are still being tallied, but this year Winters estimates they will aid 1,200 children by forwarding their wish lists to charities and finding individuals who want to take on extra Christmas shopping themselves.
“We have a lot of individual donors that reach out to us that adopt kids. We have businesses that take children, we have churches,” Winters explained.
Donors are always needed, whether they adopt a child themselves or provide monetary donations for their wish list. Project Christmas Promise is confidential on both ends, meaning both children and donors remain anonymous. The only identifiers shoppers receive are the gender and age of their child.
“I think that sets up a really ideal scenario in this situation for our neighbors to be able to help our neighbors,” Winters noted.
Donors can request a boy or girl in a specific age group. Winters enjoys seeing families do this so they can involve their own children in the shopping and let them pick out gifts for kids their age.
“That can be really a great thing, for people to get their kids involved in this and (help them) understand that there are others that maybe aren’t as fortunate as they are,” she said.
Individuals, businesses and churches interested in supporting Project Christmas Promise can contact Winters at beckywinters@pb.k12.mo.us or visit the Project Christmas Promise Facebook page.