Kindness In Motion

Generous child sets example for all us at Christmas

Kids can be amazingly kind. Take the daughter in a family of five who used her meager $20 gift allotment to help someone she didn’t even know. Salvation Army Food Pantry Coordinator Jill Brink recently received a letter from the girl’s father, along with a donation for $120, describing how it happened.

The family was facing a grim Christmas last year, so the father took the children to the local mall and gave each child $20 with which to purchase four gifts at no more than $5 each.

When the family reunited, they were all laughing and talking — all except this 8-year-old girl, who appeared very serious and was carrying a small, flat bag that contained only four, 50-cent candy bars.

Apparently while looking for gifts, she had come across one of the Salvation Army’s “Giving Trees,” which carry cards describing real local children for whom the agency is seeking “angels” to buy their presents. One card featured a little girl who asked for a doll and a hairbrush. The young shopper made the purchases and returned them with the card to the Salvation Army booth in the mall. Then she bought candy with the money she had left.

“This girl felt she was so richly blessed that she gave to another girl who was less fortunate,” Brink said.

That is the kind of holiday spirit that prompts generous friends and area residents to make gifts to the Pocono Record’s annual Toys for Joy campaign. We collect the donations between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, and then turn over the proceeds to the Salvation Army and the Pleasant Valley Ecumenical Network, which buy and distribute the gifts to needy children all around Monroe County.

You, too, can brighten a child’s holiday. Send your check to: Toys for Joy, Pocono Record, 511 Lenox St., Stroudsburg, PA 18360.