This past holiday season, volunteers joined partner organizations, churches, social service agencies and generous donors to provide delicious and affordable holiday dinner packages through SHARE. The network broke records, distributing over 14,000 Thanksgiving Dinner Packages and 5,000 Christmas Dinner Packages.
Along with these huge numbers, what’s truly inspiring is the way that the SHARE network served the community. As they do every month, our volunteers and partner organizations treat everyone they serve as part of the SHARE family. SHARE’s mission to build and strengthen community through volunteer service shines in the following holiday stories.
• Over 40 donors raised nearly $6,000 for the main office’s SHARE Cares Food Fund. This enabled every SHARE site to receive a free Christmas Dinner Package for a family in need in December. Many, many more community members also made donations to their local SHARE host site teams for holiday dinner packages—our heartfelt thanks to everyone who gave so generously!
• Warehouse and Mitten Plus Project volunteer Chuck Wakefield pitched in several long days to assemble over 2,000 beautiful pins for other SHARE volunteers.
• A crew of holiday elves led by Sylvia Zimmer spent a lively Saturday afternoon packing more than 2,000 holiday goodie bags for SHARE volunteers. Sylvia helped spruce up our warehouse with decorations, and she also led a team volunteer effort to distribute over 4,000 holiday greeting cards to veterans!
• The Milton-Edgerton SHARE site received enough donations to feed 8 families in December.
• A local business donated 11 Christmas Dinner Packages to families in need through the Iron Mountain SHARE site.
• Crystal Falls donated Christmas Dinner Packages as well as warm winter clothing to 12 area families.
• Janesville SHARE thanks all of the generous holiday dinner package donors who helped 172 families. The site also held an appreciation event for their regular volunteers. Ron and Delores say, “We had a great evening with the best volunteers in the world.”
• In Catawba, an anonymous donor helped supply holiday dinner packages to several families in need.
• Door County gave away a total of 17 meal packages.
• Manawa donated 4 Christmas Dinner Packages to families in need.
• Black River Falls donated food to a family that was experiencing unemployment, plus the site gave a candy-filled stocking to each of its members.
• Hayward “We Care To SHARE” collected over $2,900 for holiday dinner packages, plus several donors contributed additional gifts. “The happy faces made it all worthwhile,” says site leader Mary Ann Sebek.
• Sparta partnered with the Mitten Plus Project to provide food and hand-knit clothing for a family in need. “The family had tears in their eyes,” reports site leader Deb Bach.
• Endeavor raised enough money to provide over 30 families with holiday meals. Site leader Eileen Bennett commented, “It’s amazing how much generosity there is in these hard times.”
• Menasha held a Christmas party with treats for members and volunteers. Two food packages were donated to families, and a volunteer donated 90 stocking caps for members.
• Ishpeming received enough donations to provide dinner packages to 23 families. “I’m really proud we have such caring volunteers,” says site leader Maureen LaWent.
• Webster held a “Secret Shopper” holiday campaign. In the end, about 20 families received dinner packages for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.
• Westosha collected enough donations to provide 35 meals. “I’d like to thank all my volunteers. It couldn’t have been done without you,” says site coordinator Carol Babin.
• Using donations from organizations and school groups, St. Rafael distributed over 190 holiday dinners to neighborhood families. Regular volunteers were joined by many others to make the distribution go smoothly.
• In Jackson, members were asked to nominate a family to receive a donated dinner. A drawing was held, and the members delivered meals to 10 families.
• The Oconto SHARE site served goodies to their members in December and held a party for their volunteer team.
• Appleton received a large donation from a local business that was used to provide Christmas Dinner Packages to 14 families.
• Jayne Brand of Prescott reports, “It was pretty amazing to give a Christmas Dinner to a family. The one that we chose was a single mother with two kids. They were so grateful for the gift.”
• Boulevard Apartments collected enough money to feed 13 families over the holidays.
• Through the generosity of its parish, St. Josaphat gave a total of 20 holiday dinner packages to local families in need.
• Kewaunee thanks its local “Secret Santa” for the donation of money to buy food for families in need.
SHARE's 2009 Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinner Packages came with all the fixings to cook a meal for six, including a
new, larger assortment of seasonal fresh fruits and vegetables! Families were invited to purchase and pick up their dinner
package at a SHARE location near them, or make a donation to distribute dinner packages to
deserving families. Groups and organizations also purchased packages for their community outreach. Below is a listing of the contents of each package in 2009. Later this summer we will post the contents of the 2010 packages on this page.
