Imagine a knock on your door a weekend before Christmas from a few strangers wanting to give you presents for all of your children and enough food for Christmas dinner and more. You never entered a contest or even filled out any applications asking for help. A group of 25 individuals and over 10 Harmony Township businesses donated to the Project Holiday Dreams program to make a Christmas to remember for 28 families and 52 children . The program continues to grow each year starting 5 years ago with 5 families.
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Photos courtesy of Project Holiday Dreams
Project Holiday Dreams started as a memory that was shared from Harmony Township Chairman Glenn Angus to his son, Jeremy Angus back during the Christmas season in 2009. Glenn shared a memory how years ago the Harmony Township Commissioners used to do something for the under privileged families in the township each holiday season. Through discussion between Glenn and his son as to how they could bring this type of program back to life, they decided to begin it as a family charity that holiday season. The Angus family has decided to continue organizing and donating to this program for all the years since. The difference is now the others involved truly are what make the program what it is not the Angus family. "We are just the organizers for what has turned into to a much larger effort" said Jeremy Angus. This program has grown since then into a program that is funded through many donors from businesses to individuals looking to help and is done annually.
The families are picked through the cooperation of the Ambridge Area School District. The program has grown from servicing only Harmony Township families to servicing families throughout the entire school district. The families are then screened several times by those in the district who interact with the students each day. Jeremy added "We then attempt to learn as much information about the students from their supervisors in order to ease shopping."
The program give toys and food to each family. Each packaged is individually wrapped for each child. They often put in a gift for the parents or a gift that the entire family can share and enjoy also. On delivery night, four trucks head out to deliver to the homes of the families with a team of volunteers in each one. The transportation is provided by Harmony Township. The team assembles at the home of the Angus family for what often turns into a small Christmas gathering, to load up the trucks and head out at 6PM on delivery night.
For 2013, two different trips to Giant Eagle and a four hour trip to Walmart later,t he shopping was finally complete. The amazing part is while they are shopping for the goods with several full carts, are the individuals shopping or the managers of the store who come over offering help, donations or anything that they can. Jeremy shared "That is the humbling part of the shopping process. Hearing the stories of the families in which we deliver too make the program all the better. A lot of our donors join for delivery and can see first hand what their donation is doing to impact the families, that is very important to us, but even more important to them. "
The families are picked through the cooperation of the Ambridge Area School District. The program has grown from servicing only Harmony Township families to servicing families throughout the entire school district. The families are then screened several times by those in the district who interact with the students each day. Jeremy added "We then attempt to learn as much information about the students from their supervisors in order to ease shopping."
The program give toys and food to each family. Each packaged is individually wrapped for each child. They often put in a gift for the parents or a gift that the entire family can share and enjoy also. On delivery night, four trucks head out to deliver to the homes of the families with a team of volunteers in each one. The transportation is provided by Harmony Township. The team assembles at the home of the Angus family for what often turns into a small Christmas gathering, to load up the trucks and head out at 6PM on delivery night.
For 2013, two different trips to Giant Eagle and a four hour trip to Walmart later,t he shopping was finally complete. The amazing part is while they are shopping for the goods with several full carts, are the individuals shopping or the managers of the store who come over offering help, donations or anything that they can. Jeremy shared "That is the humbling part of the shopping process. Hearing the stories of the families in which we deliver too make the program all the better. A lot of our donors join for delivery and can see first hand what their donation is doing to impact the families, that is very important to us, but even more important to them. "
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