The Rotary Club of New Braunfels recently held their second annual Making Spirits Bright holiday program, a community service project for underprivileged families living in New Braunfels.
Immediate Past President Chris Humphries proposed the idea two years ago while President, to develop a new and special community service project to help fulfill some of the holiday needs of local disadvantaged families during Christmas – his favorite holiday. It was also seen as an opportunity to bridge some socioeconomic gaps in our community with Club members sitting amongst the families and engaging them in conversation.
Humphries pitched his idea to the Club which approved it, and a planning committee was formed to discuss and design the project. What happened next is nothing short of a Christmas miracle.
The committee, chaired by Julie Rivas, met and Humphries’ original idea quickly grew and transformed into a unique multi-component event, dubbed Making Spirits Bright. The three components included child selection day, an Ugly Sweater Wrappin’ party, and the Making Spirits Bright family holiday lunch celebration. The committee worked with Family Life Center, a local nonprofit agency that serves the community as a point of first contact for people in crisis situations and was enlisted to vet and select the families for participation.
The first component, child selection day, was held a month before the family holiday lunch celebration. A Giving Tree was displayed, and participating Club members selected an ornament from it, each representing a child with their age, gender, and two gift requests – one a need and one a want. Members then purchased the requested gifts for their selected child.
The second component was the Ugly Sweater Wrappin’ Party. The Club agreed to take its traditional Christmas Party/lunch in a new direction and created a new event to include spouses and families with a holiday lunch, Christmas karaoke, an ugly sweater contest, some holiday spirit, and gift wrapping of all the purchased gifts.
During the following week, the committee and volunteers pulled all the many pieces of the main event together, sorting and bagging the children’s wrapped gifts, building table centerpieces, and shopping for and assembling the Christmas meal boxes. The day of the event, the committee and volunteers transformed the meeting hall into a winter wonderland.
The third component of Making Spirits Bright, and the most important, was the family holiday lunch celebration, complete with a full traditional holiday meal served buffet style, live entertainment, hand selected gifts for the children, keepsake Making Spirits Bright ornaments, a visit from Santa with photos and candy canes, and a boxed holiday family dinner including a smoked turkey and all the traditional sides, and a centerpiece for their table. The inaugural event was an overwhelming success.
Fast forward one year later and chair Julie Rivas rallied the troops again, officially making the program an annual community service event, and Making Spirits Bright 2023 – Santa’s Workshop was scheduled for December 20th.
With few changes to the previous year, Club members were asked, in addition to purchasing gifts and/or paying for a meal box, to also consider donating or purchasing a sponsorship to help cover costs, which they enthusiastically did. Club members gave an astonishing $18,270 in donations and sponsorships to cover all costs of the event.
The Club’s selfless generosity provided 41 families with 106 children an afternoon of holiday cheer and fun they won’t soon forget. Upon arriving, each child received a stocking full of candy and toys, and the families were seated to enjoy the live music and more toys that were doing double duty as each table’s centerpiece. A surprise highlight of the event was the arrival of two larger than life Transformers who roamed the room and took pictures with the kids and their families. The other of course was the arrival of Santa and Mrs. Clause who visited with every child and took keepsake photos with each. Following lunch, the families received their children’s gifts and their Christmas meal boxes.
