The spirit of Christmas lives year-round
BOUNDARY COUNTY
GIVE & RECEIVE
By Hannah Sucsy Willis
I
t all started with a mattress set that Alison Henslee set out to donate credit,” says Alison. “I fielded calls, followed up on posts and organized on behalf of her mom. In addition to the person who ended up with volunteers from my warm living room, but Aaron was truly the muscle the bed, there were five or six more people who were interested in behind the Giving Spirit of Christmas operation. He filled the gaps in the item. One of those was a single mother of four in need of a bed my list, organized wood splitters and haulers, trouble-shot vehicle issues, for her 6-year-old son. Alison put the word paid bills, bought gifts, wrestled mattresses out, generosity came out of the woodwork, and was good-natured—even when he was in and soon this boy had a brand new bed. pain and I was bossy!" Alison became aware of other needs of this Six beds, two or three bills, rent money, The beauty of this family, and with the help of a few friends, she presents/decorations for eight families, vehicle soon had a car full of everything to take care repairs or parts, firewood and too many gifts of this family's immediate needs. The mother is that it wasn’t just to count were donated in just three weeks. was absolutely overjoyed and deeply touched, and she promised to pay it forward. The beauty of this is that it wasn’t just two two people doing people doing nice things. This was spurring For Alison, the joy of giving combined with dozens of people to help others, strangers a new awareness of needs was enough to nice things. This was or not. Alison and Aaron knew that they light a spark to do more. She created a post couldn’t just let it die, so they decided to on Bonners Ferry Facebook Yard Sale site create a new Facebook group to carry out asking people what one thing they needed for spurring dozens of the same mission—year-round! Like and the holidays that they were unable to afford. follow Boundary County Give & Receive (on One of the comments on the post was from people to help others, Facebook) to participate in this inspirational Aaron Supernant, who was excited about connection of generosity. If you want to be Alison’s vision, and he volunteered to help part of it but you aren’t on Facebook, you track requests and whatever else was needed. strangers or not. are welcome to contact Alison at aghenslee@ "I really feel like Aaron should get most of the gmail.com or 208.610.8806.
BonnersFerryLivingLocal.com
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