The Christmas season often brings out people who are more than willing to offer a helping hand to those who need it the most.
For many reasons, the Barry County Neighborhood Center has organized program after program to help the community. The reason for this season is Share Your Christmas, a program which has run for many years and brings Christmas into the homes of local children.
Kimberly Healy, supervisor of the Barry County Neighborhood Center, said this year the facility served 250 children.
“That is about what we did last year,” she said. “We have several people and businesses who donate. From factories, to banks, churches, and other local small businesses.
“Cassville schools’ Miss Merry Christmas donates all their donations to us, and Herrin Animal Hospital have worked with us for more than a decade. When they started doing it, they were gathering gifts outside of our program, but they are donating everything to us. Now we have come together.”
Healy said sign up started on Nov. 7 and ran to Nov. 18.
“It takes us a few days to make all the ornaments and get them out to everyone,” she said. “But, the donations start right away. We have about three weeks to gather donations before the distribution date of Dec. 14.”
Distribution starts at the First Baptist Church, where children get their ID cards, hygiene bags and vouchers.
“Then, they go over to the United Methodist Church to get their bags of toys,” Healy said. “It is really important to me to show our children that people can come together. It teaches them that we are a good community, so eventually, when they grow up, they continue to help and create that good community.”
Healy said something she has noticed is that children are always watching.
“They are watching and listening to everything,” she said. “This is how we lead by example and teach them to be a good person.”
Healy said Barry County Neighborhood Center helps children all over the county, so it would be great to have more support throughout the community as well.
In Monett and Shell Knob, Jennifer Prine, Century 21 office manager and agent for both locations, said she has been a part of Realtors Reaching Out for many years.
“This year we served 58 children from the Pierce City, Verona, and Aurora school districts,” she said. “I contact the counselors and principals of the districts and they choose the students we can help the most.”
This organization puts a focus on high school age children.
“We will accept junior high students as well if they have an older sibling who is being served,” she said. “I start out with two schools usually and ask for about 20 kids. I always say if I have enough funds I can reach out and get more.”
Prine says it always comes down to how much funding there is.
“I have done it for enough years that I present at our yearly membership meeting and that usually gets some,” she said. “Then, I start reaching out to other local real estate offices and agents. Great American Title and Meridian Title are highly involved and buy lunch the day we take the kids shopping.”
Prine said that there are always a couple of banks or businesses and some individuals who donate as well.
“This year because of some additional funding we were able to buy the kids shoes too,” she said. “We take the kids to a shopping center in Springfield and give them money for necessities like clothing and etc. This year we were able to give them $150 for that. And this year we also gave them $70 to go to Shoe Carnival to buy shoes.
On top of that, Realtors Reaching Out makes them a gift bag with other essentials like underwear, socks and other toiletries.
“This has been life changing,” Prine said. “I had no idea how many high school children were homeless, living in cars or on couches. We found that high school children are the forgotten ones.
“This isn’t just about taking them shopping. We are having conversations with these kids — it really makes everyone grounded.”
