Angel Tree suggestions

Hi everyone–sorry I have written in so late about the Angel Tree comment I made at the last meeting. But, reading When Helping Hurts has given me some thoughts on how we might be able to improve the Angel Tree process this year.

1. I think that there needs to be an integration between those who buy the gifts and the recipients who receive the gifts. Right now, Parkwooders can pick up a tag, drop off a gift, and they are done with the process. We do this to make it easier for people to be involved, but as we have read about in WHH, we could actually be perpetuating a “God-complex” in the participants by running the program this way.

2. Instead, I’d like for us to think about whether we can change things this year so that whomever buys the gift is also the person who delivers the gift. I know this results in a higher commitment from people, but I think it is an important change for us to consider. That way, there is less of a disconnect between the gift-buyer and the gift-recipient. And if there are multiple children from the same family, perhaps a group of people could all buy those gifts together and then give them together.

3. To make this potential change easier, I am wondering it would be best to assign this task to the small groups initially. It will be much easier for people to do this in the context of a community of people who will all be in it together. Also, then the small group could try to maintain a connection with those families they were assigned and to keep the relationship going throughout the year and beyond.

4. Then if there are still leftover gifts to be purchased, we could open the rest up to the church, but still encourage the gift buyer-gift deliverer experience.

So those are some initial thoughts I have, and I’d welcome other ideas. This will definitely stretch people who are used to just buying gifts and feeling good about their contribution, but I think our role as the M&J team is to continually stretch and push the congregation to look to the next step of how we all can grow in this area. And as we discussed at the last meeting, building personal connections with those who would be considered under-resourced or disadvantaged is an important growth area for us all. Angel Tree doesn’t allow us to do this in great depth, but it is at least a start.

-Helen

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