Sharing Christmas Goes On

   The annual Saguache Sharing Christmas community collaboration was a roaring success despite the inevitable complications caused by Covid-19. Each year the Saguache Community comes together to put together food boxes for a Christmas Dinner as well as supplemental food to get through the holidays. This was needed more than ever this year and 148 food boxes were prepared and given out to the community. There is no paperwork, restrictions or requirements to get a Sharing Christmas box and they are available to anyone who needs one. As a bonus for our senior citizens, South Central Colorado Seniors participated and added 100 boxes of shelf stable food for seniors which was greatly appreciated. This annual event is something that requires input from many different areas of the community and as always our friends, neighbors and colleagues stepped up and did their part to make this often complicated effort run smoothly.

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   HEART of Saguache/KV was forced to cancel the annual community Thanksgiving Dinner, however we used these funds to supplement the Sharing Christmas food budget. We want to thank all the other donors and volunteers who helped make the Saguache Sharing Christmas Collaboration possible. The Town of Saguache made a significant financial contribution of $500.00 making a huge difference to the food budget. They also showed wonderful hospitality by allowing the use of the Community Building for the collection of food, the packing of boxes and distribution which simplified the entire process. In addition, they gave $500 towards the food budget which made a significant difference. Saguache County also showed their support by providing HEART of Saguache/KV with a generous $3500 sales tax grant to be put towards Sharing Christmas. The Saguache Department of Social Services and commodities were able to provide all the turkeys and store them for us until we were able to use them.

 Iris and Eddie Garcia as Garmy Distribution have alway provided continued support for the Saguache Sharing Christmas Collaboration. Every year they provide all the delicious rolls for the Christmas dinner. The HEART team and the community as a whole are always extremely grateful for their contributions, small businesses such as this that support their community are a wonderful resource. Eddie and Iris also delivered the potatoes donated by Skyline Potato of Center who also need a special thank you for their generous and spontaneous donation of 150, 5 lbs bags of potatoes. They filled a large need at exactly the right time and made the holiday dinner a little more complete for many.
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   We also had financial donors from the community. Sunny and Mary Samora as well as
Karen and Paul Smith donated funds to help with food purchases. In addition there were anonymous donors who deposited money into the Sharing Christmas account. As always the Saguache Town Market ordered all the other food and gave a generous discount. Tawyna Sherise and Doug Peoples also went above and beyond by allowing us to use their personal walk-in freezer to store food until distribution. Mountain Valley School took care of gifts for students by organizing the Giving Tree which allowed individuals to sponsor specific children. HEART filled a need for gifts for homeschooled students outside of MVS.

   We still managed to recruit individual volunteers to safely help us to organize food boxes within their social or family bubbles. Mountain Valley High School students came out in a group to help organize food. We had youth volunteers such as the Van Egmond family; Logan Gallegos, Cyrus, Lily and Ivy Van Egmond, Keith and Mason-Merritt Armenta, Kaelyn Taylor, Kassidey Binion, and Damien Ross who all came out in family units to pack boxes. The always hard working Liza Marron came out to help with Antonio Marron, Samantha and Heath Blivens. Adrienne Garabini and Alex Decarli, Stacy Martinez and Bryan Arrellano and Mae Folsom also dedicated their time. Peggy and Tom Reynolds and Laurie Vigil delivered boxes to those shut-ins who weren’t able to collect them.
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 Last but definitely not least a special thanks goes out to The Saguache Volunteer Fire Department who spent the afternoon orchestrating the surprisingly organized safe curbside pickup of boxes. The Volunteer Fire Department has been distributing food boxes for many years and they were immediately ready to adapt to the current health guidelines. The HEART team is so grateful for the community support that comes out of this annual event. It seems that helping each other is something that our community is expert in and this is the foundation of community strength that we build upon each day. Thank you everyone!

   To get on the HEART food distribution list or to volunteer with HEART in our other efforts please contact either Stacey or Laurie at heartsholden@gmail.com or heartlvigil@gmail.com.
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