Adopting angels still have time to help families in need with the purchase of Christmas gifts, but they’d better act fast, said Anne Blackwell, chairperson of the Holiday Baskets Program.
For 40 years, the local, volunteer-run program has donated gifts to families between Aspen and Rifle. Anyone can volunteer to “adopt” a family and purchase gifts for an entire family, or simply to provide a monetary donation. The recipients range from a single person to seven members of a family, and Blackwell, who has been running the program for more than a decade, said the donations go a long way.
Seeing the names and ages of the recipients on their applications is what drives her to keep working with the program, she said.
“They become real to me. It’s not just a name, it’s a person,” Blackwell said. “We have no way of knowing, but maybe this will be the only celebration they get for the holidays, and so that is a real incentive because I’ve been very blessed in my life and I never went without a holiday. So it is meaningful.”
The program serves an average of 250 families and 1,000 people, although Blackwell said she guesses the number will be higher this year. She won’t know until the end of the season when she adds up all the gifts.
Families are referred by 13 local agencies, some of which have worked with the program for many years — such as The Buddy Program, Carbondale Senior Housing, Pitkin County Health and Human Services. There are some new ones, including Pathfinders and The People’s Clinic. The agencies pick up the gifts once they are wrapped and deliver them to their clients.
Brooke Bockleman, program director at the Buddy Program, said the appreciation for the gifts shines through every year when clients pick them up.
“We hear the gratitude from families for the program. We get to see firsthand when people come in to pick up that they’re appreciative,” she said. “Knowing that the holidays and the shift to winter can be a hard time for a lot of us, the holiday baskets bring extra cheer to some of our hardworking youth and their families.”
The program is already three weeks into its gift-collecting operations this year, and things are working a little differently. Online shopping is expected to be slower than normal this year due to mail service delays, so angels won’t be able to easily shop online like they did last year. In fact, angels who would like to sign up to adopt are encouraged not to shop online.
However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the program began using the online service PayPal to collect monetary donations, which resulted in thousands of dollars the program could use to buy City Market gift cards for families to purchase meals. The program provides each family with food cards worth $30 per person, adding up to about $40,000 total.
“This is a very generous valley,” Blackwell said. “I couldn’t believe it last year, because I would get the emails from PayPal [telling me] who was donating, and oh my gosh, somebody gave $1,000, somebody gave $500. It was amazing, and that’s how we were able to increase the food cards.”
It’s not just community members who care. Blackwell said that year after year, she sees how much the 13 agencies care about their clients, and it makes her heart burst.
“That just shows what our community is like,” she said. “Yeah, we are caring for each other. It really is rewarding, it’s a wonderful feeling.”
In addition to the adopting angels, donors and volunteers who wrap and sort the gifts to be picked up, the program also places Christmas trees in local schools with tags that name the gift and a person’s age. For example, a tag could say, “Puzzle for a 4-year-old.”
Last year, the program wasn’t able to do this because of COVID-19, but under normal circumstances, students could purchase and drop off these gifts and they would be counted as extra donations. Because there are always more families in need than are adopted, the program matches these gifts with families who don’t get adopted so that every single person who needs a gift is accounted for.
It’s too late for angels to shop online, Blackwell said, but there are still families who have not been adopted. Anyone interested in adopting a family has until Dec. 12 to shop and drop off their gifts at the Aspen Chapel or St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Basalt. To adopt a family, email the program at rfvholidaybaskets@gmail.com.
The program also accepts monetary donations via PayPal on its website — visit holidaybasketsprogram.com and click on “Donate.” Or, checks can be mailed to “Holiday Baskets” at P.O. Box 2192, Basalt, CO, 81621.
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December 04, 2021 at 05:00PM
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With baskets program, there’s still time to spread holiday cheer - Aspen Daily News
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