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January 2007
To the Families of the GFLL and Friends in Great Falls,
Once again, I am humbled by the generosity of our community. There are truly no words to express our thanks to those who donated gifts, food and clothing to the children and families we adopted at the Hart Recreation Center in Ward 8 again this year. This is our 3rd year, and it gets better each year. In addition to so many other charities that families donate to, our donations remain strong and we are grateful.
The children who attend the Hart Rec Center in DC all year round are “rewarded” by being allowed to make a specific request for a gift. This year we were able to purchase the 40 gifts for those children, plus many gifts for so many other children who we knew would be without. My house/garage quickly filled once again with gifts, and clothing. We brought over 80 bags of used clothing—all of which was washed and sorted by gender/age (thank you everyone who pitched in!) The director of Hart Rec has been through the clothing, and I believe most of it has been distributed already. Thank you to Roberta Greenspan and her family for coordinating the food basket effort-35 food baskets were made at the Greenspan house with unbelievable efficiency!
In addition to our generous GFLL families and friends, special thanks to: Brownie Troop # 2293 which donated more than 30 gifts for the Moms this year; a donor who bought beautiful lotion gift boxes for the Moms as well; our donor who purchased all the bikes and trikes requested; Forestville, Great Falls and Colvin Run Elementary schools who donated all the clothing from their lost and founds; The Long family for donating a hand-made bookcase (family heirloom), Sylvia Roman and the GFES Kids Care Club, Chris Schindler from GF Hoops and Dave Williams from The Reston Little League who donated equipment and uniforms. My apologies if I have left anyone out.
Special thanks again to Giant Food (North Point and Dranesville Rd), Harris Teeter and Trader Joe's for their generous donations. Thank you also to those who came to our houses to wrap gifts and assemble the food baskets. We were an efficient, lively group, and the help was greatly needed and appreciated.
We were a caravan of 11 cars this year, and fortunately George was able to borrow a cargo van again. Special thanks to all the families who attended the holiday party at Hart, and sincere apologies to those that were turned away. The party at Hart was much smaller this year, and by invitation only, so as to really make it special for the families who attend regularly. Had we been 70+ people from Great Falls, it would’ve been too many. We would like to figure something else out to be able to accommodate all the families from GF who are interested (any ideas?). The party was a little different this year, hot dogs, cotton candy, etc., and each child was called up to receive their gift. They introduced themselves and told a little bit about themselves, and we were able to put a face to the name on the list. It was great fun—especially seeing the little ones receive their gifts.
Again, my sincere thanks to all of you for your overwhelming generosity. Please know that this Christmas was much, much brighter for so many because of your help. Let's keep it up! The Director at the Hart Rec center said she’s never received so much support from anyone in the 9 years she’s been working there!
Best wishes for a Happy New Year to you all,
Laura and George O’Connor and family
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