Christmas – a Moment For Charity

I found myself one day reminiscing about our past Christmas. I remember my two little boy’s excitement in their eyes, as we were trimming the tree and they discussed about Santa’s visit, leaving cookies out for the cheerful old man, carrots for his reindeers, and shopping using their small savings to buy gifts for each other. I recall the Christmas mornings in church and I recall always being flocked by loved ones throughout the holiday season. I acknowledge how blessed I am to have my family, friends, loved-ones, and most of all, God in my life.

This made me think of ways to reciprocate all the blessings I have enjoyed. But the question is, how?

Being an entrepreneur with a small restaurant left very little time for me to do anything else in my life. So start with, my husband, a sister of mine working at the restaurant, my Chef and I gather together to discuss possibilities and after which finally came to the finale that we could best do it by serving food.

There were a lot of destitute people in my town. A plan began to get together - serving Christmas dinner to families who could barely afford a meal. We decided to close the restaurant earlier than the usual on Christmas Eve so that we could serve them a Christmas dinner and still have family time after that!

But who would help us cook and serve the food, and do the after care - all on Christmas Eve?

And so, we posted a note to the restaurant staff entitled "A Christmas Story - A Moment for Charity" explaining our plan and requesting for their help. In a couple of days we had countless volunteers to help prepare and serve the food, do the dishes and clean up! "A Christmas Story - A Moment for Charity" had the employees keyed up and raring to go for the chance to share something of themselves during this precious time of the year!

The next difficulty was how to get hold of a list of people to invite and how to spread the word out about it.

Most of our regular customers attended local churches. Those churches regularly sponsored a free meal for the poor every Thursday evening. The restaurant always donated food or money to help facilitate those dinners. Could they possibly help us organize a guest list?

So I then decided meet with the person responsible of those Thursday night dinners and was able to get a response that they would be thrilled to help with our Christmas dinner plan. The churches would come-up with a guest list and spread the word out to the poor at their Thursday dinners.

We received the guest list in December and found that lots of children would be among our dinner guests. My sister suggested buying Christmas gifts for the children. She and some common friends annually held a charity party to raise money for poor families and they come to a decision to give part of that money to buy gifts for the kids. The guest list reflected the ages and gender of each child, so my sister was able to buy appropriate gifts for each one.
Those who volunteered to prepare and serve Christmas dinner also inquired if their children could help too. Who could stop them from experiencing the pleasure of serving others! The kids enjoyed serving the Chef's mouthwatering roast turkey dinner with all the added extras and the pumpkin pie for dessert.

After every hunger was satisfied, people lingered over for coffee. My sister and her friends presented wrapped gifts to each child. Every one of us felt blessed when we saw each child's eyes light up with astonishment and joy. It is indeed a very wonderful feeling to bring a minute of pleasure and a full tummy to those in need.

Since then, the restaurant continued this Christmas Story - A Moment for Charity every year subsequently. We never run out of volunteers.

Unfortunately we never run out of needy guests, either. But it is a great experience to have people in the neighborhood stop by or phone us to offer their assistance every year.