‘LABOR OF LOVE’
Christmas program volunteers step back from leadership role
The past nine years leading the Lakeside Christmas Assistance Program have been a “labor of love” for Britani Martin and Kimberly Hall, who are stepping down from their leadership roles after this year.
“It’s a little bittersweet for this to be our last year. We have done it for nine years, and we love doing it,” Martin said.
“We’re sad not to be a part of it, but we’ll still have our hands in it helping and volunteering,” Hall said.
Putting on the program is a lot of work because it takes most of November and December to complete it.
“We’ve always called it kind of a labor of love because when you look around, and you see all these gifts, and you see all these families that are going to have gifts … it makes it worth it,” Martin said.
“Every year, we see our Lakeside families come together, and we stress out trying to put all the pieces together, organizing emails and getting them here, then God always makes it work out,” Hall said.
The program is a parent-teacher organization project that involves primary and intermediate students. Hall has
been involved in the program since her oldest child was in kindergarten, and now that Hall’s and Martin’s youngest children are moving up to middle school, it is time for them to pass the torch to someone else.
“Technically, we are aging out because of our children,” Hall said. “We are leaving it in very good hands.”
December is a stressful time for all families, and there is a lot going on behind closed doors that people don’t know about. The program allows volunteers to take some of that worry off the families’ hands and the school counselors’ hands, they said.
Martin’s mother is a retired counselor, and now her sister is one, as well. The conversations Martin would have with her mother and sister would be about trying to find Christmas for the students.
“That’s not really what the counselor should be focused on. Those kids need them to be there to talk to,” Martin said.
“I think us taking that off their plate and having to provide Christmas allows them to really get to know the families even though you just don’t realize how much they need, and a lot of times it’s bigger,” she said.
Being in the program has put things in perspective for Hall and Martin, they said, noting they get forms from families starting in November through December. The last- minute families are the ones that are most in need, and the program never wants to turn people away.
“We will stress out about the details about making sure that we have enough sponsors because there’s not a year that goes by that God didn’t just put it together just right,” Hall said.
She and Martin are the organizers, Hall said, but she doesn’t think she would have been able to see all the things she has seen if it wasn’t for the generous families at Lakeside and the sponsors.
“It makes us realize that there’s a lot that goes on. There’s a lot of need out there, and this is a small thing that we can do every Christmas to meet that need and bring joy,” Hall said.
Martin said the fantastic thing about the corporate sponsors was that neither of them went out looking for them, they just found them.
“That is such a blessing to have so many businesses, but it’s not anything that we went out looking for,” she said.
“A lot of people think that Lakeside wouldn’t have a need. I think we are a very blessed school,” Hall said.
“I think something that I am going to miss about this program is the experience and seeing people give,” Martin said.
This year, the Lakeside Christmas Assistance Program