‘It’s a God thing’
Salvation Army auxiliary, area donors ensure merry Christmases for hundreds of needy families
Some 1,000 needy families in the Oklahoma City metro will wake to a merry Christmas this year — thanks to the efforts of the area Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary and donors who pulled children’s wish lists from the army’s Angel Trees in area malls this holiday season. On Tuesday, auxiliary members and corporate volunteers like myself distributed toys, bikes and Bibles to disadvantaged households from a vacant Hobby Lobby store just northwest of Memorial and Penn. I decided it would be my honor to hand the Bibles to the grateful parents who came. But, caught up in conversation, I flubbed my self-assigned duty on the second client my five-member, volunteer squad served. I was still clutching a Spanish Bible as the Latino mom drove away. Jackey, our bilingual squad leader, said she’d love to have the forgotten Bible. She didn’t have one. Assuaging my guilt, her OG&E co-worker Amanda said, “See, it’s a God thing. That’s how God works.” “It’s a God thing” clearly was the theme for the day. For only the third year, the auxiliary was able to provide a bike or tricycle for every child who requested one, said D’Anna Pulliam, founder
and chairwoman of the 12-year-old Buck$ 4 Bikes campaign. This year’s campaign raised $60,492 and almost that precise amount — $60,484 — was needed to buy the 1,403 bikes requested by kids.
Oklahoman readers who responded to a column we ran in July are responsible for kicking in $7,985 of those donations — toward bikes bought in September from Ohio-based Huffy, shipped compliments of Fed-Ex, and assembled last month by Rotary Club members and other volunteers.
“That’s a God thing,” Pulliam said, “because we never know how many kids every year are going to ask for a bike.“
Until recently, the auxiliary has been some 600 bikes shy every year, leaving hundreds of parents distraught that they wouldn’t be able to come through on Christmas morning with the bikes for which their kids wrote Santa. Not surprisingly, bikes are the most askedfor gift.
Pulliam said she was thrilled with this year’s response and already is collecting donations for Christmas 2019. A $34 donation underwrites one bike for a kid. I make a point to write a check for that exact amount every year. Won’t you join me?
The Oklahoma Bicycle Society (OBS) funds a helmet for every bike gifted and on-site OBS volunteers ensure each bike is safe mechanically — with tightened pedals, secured brakes and handlebars pointing the right way — before it’s wheeled out the door.
Tuesday, the number of bikes parked and waiting for distribution — 1,403 — about equaled the number of 30-by-30-inch cardboard boxes — 1,050 — stuffed with bags of toys and tagged by a number assigned to each family.
Every year, auxiliary member Sharron Ashton takes on the arduous task of managing the boxes — a well-oiled process that includes breaking them down the minute they are emptied to be whisked away for next year.
“When that last box is emptied, I’ll be riding in the cart with the toys as it’s wheeled out,” said Ashton on Tuesday.
This is Ashton’s 10th year as chair of the boxes. She comes by her organizational skills naturally. For 18 years, she served as exhibit chair for the Arts Festival of Oklahoma, managing the detailed layout of the tents and exhibits, and more.
This is the 11th year that I’ve had the privilege of helping with the toy distribution. When I missed my cue to hand out the Spanish Bible, I was telling Amanda how I began volunteering Christmas of 2007 when I was going through a divorce. The toy distribution was the perfect opportunity to focus on others instead of myself — and still is.
Sadly, Amanda could more than relate. This past year, she lost three babies to miscarriages, and the toy distribution was an opportunity to joyfully “mother” hundreds of Oklahoma City’s disadvantaged kids along with her 9-year-old stepdaughter.
In our, I believe far-from-accidental, meeting, I was able to share with Amanda that I too had suffered several miscarriages before I — by the grace of God — adopted my daughter at birth (Jess is now a high school senior!).
At the end of our volunteer stint together, Amanda and I hugged and vowed to see each other next year.
“Just think,” she said as she waved goodbye and drove out of sight, “... in this short amount of time, how many kids we’ve helped have a great Christmas.”
Merry Christmas!