Today the ambulance company called Bill.  They are sending her $50 back.  Just before Christmas a man came to their company and asked for the name of someone who was struggling to pay his or her bill. This secret Santa paid her entire bill.

Megan Willome wrote a wonderful story about what our Friends for Thanksgiving Program meant to her family.  You can read her article in November’s issue of the WACOAN Magazine.

Before we know it Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here and we have thousands of people to reach out to this holiday season — people who are alone.  Most don’t have family to remember them.  We have a program called Friends for Thanksgiving where we deliver Thanksgiving Dinners to homebound elderly and people with disabilities.  These are folks who wouldn’t otherwise have anyway to celebrate Thanksgiving.  We also have a program called Gifts for Grannies & Grandpas, too and each year we collect, package and distribute thousands of gifts to lonely people who need to be remembered, not just at Christmas but on their birthdays and other holidays during the year.  If you’d like to help and live close you could help collect, wrap or deliver packages.  If you’d like to help and you don’t live close, you can could call a local nursing home to see who will be alone this Christmas or help us reach out to more people by making a contribution.

Above are just a few of the notes we’ve received from clients.  I just wanted you to know how much this means to them.  I took their names off to  protect their confidentiality.

“I knew I couldn’t use it since I can hardly walk, but I thought, if it’s free I’ll give it away to someone.”  But then I got my credit card bill and there’s an $800.00 charge on it for that cruise!  I don’t know what to do!  I am so scared….I am just so stupid, can’t believe it!  I don’t have $800, what am I going to do?”

We assured her that she wasn’t stupid.  We told her that lots of people bought the ‘free cruise’.  Then we called on her behalf and, in spite of a firm policy against refunds, they issued her a credit for the full amount.

I could barely hear her one day when she called.  I knew she needed help.  All I could really make out was ‘hot’.  She was close to ninety.  She had advanced osteoporosis.  She had been in the hospital and she had taken a cab home.  Her electricity had been turned off while she was gone and in July it is really hot in Texas.  It was over a hundred degrees in her house.  On the little table by her chair in the living room was an envelope.  It was her electric bill.  She had forgotten to mail it.  We called the electric company and they turned on her electricity immediately.

Volunteers went all over town looking for 200 piece puzzles because while there are lots of puzzles that size for children, it is a little tougher to find those for adults.  And, I asked a widow if she would make salmon croquettes.  The next morning we delivered his birthday presents (two grocery bags full of puzzles & salmon croquettes).  He called me at 10am.  “I worked all my puzzles and ate my salmon croquettes.”  “Happy Birthday.”

She called me the next morning and asked, “where’s my secretary?”  I told her that secretary cost a lot of money and it would be much better if she didn’t use that secretary anymore.   Even though she missed her secretary, she did love having a telephone again.  She was able to call us anytime she wanted to and we could call and check to make sure she was okay.

This precious widow called us almost daily because she was legally blind and wanted us to read the Bible to her.  One day she called and said, “I am so hungry for peach cobbler.”  We took her some and she called later and said happily, “do I sound like I’m full of peach cobbler?”

A volunteer that is willing to help with little things, like changing a light bulb, can make a big difference.