Vendor Writing

Little Match Box Girl

BY DANIEL H., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR

The Little Match Box Girl project is based on a fairytale by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, which was first published in 1845. Wendy has for years dedicated her life to comfort and aid those less fortunate. I will let her tell the story and her purpose to keep the tradition of helping those in need as only she can tell it.

The story is about a poor girl who sells matches, but fails to sell any. On New Year’s Eve as people walk by laughing and talking on their way home to parties and families no one stops. She is basically invisible to them. Finally, she lights one of her single matches to keep warm. She sees a vision of food and warmth. She goes longer, she’s cold again. She lights another one. She sees a vision of her mother coming to find her, and the third one she sees her long dead grandmother. Then she freezes to death on the streets, cold and alone.

So, a lot of people say, “You will see signs of people who are homeless on a corner. Sometimes their signs will say, ‘Am I Invisible?’”

From that idea our project, The Little Match Girl, got started. We make little decorated match boxes. Some of them are matches, some of them are sewing kits, some of them are jewelry, some of them are hidden treasures, some of them are little antique pins. They are all kinds of things. We sell them and a hundred percent goes to local programs who serve people experiencing homelessness.

This year’s recipients will be The Contributor and The Village at Glencliff, which is a program of micro housing, created for people who have just been released from a hospital and have no place warm an safe to go home. The third place is Community Care Fellowship, a project of the United Methodist Church that serves two meals a day and lets people experiencing homelessness do laundry and take a hot shower.

The match boxes are $10 each or three for $25. They will be sold every Sunday in December until Christmas at the West End United Methodist Church. You do not have to be a member to come. There are lots of other charities selling nice things. All the money, not the proceeds, but 100 percent of the purchase price goes to this project.

I will be at West End United Methodist Church on Sundays in December to sell the matchboxes. I get there at 7 in the morning before services start, and stay until the last morning service I cover, which is until about 12:30 p.m. So, I hope people will come, and will do something nice for people in this cold season.

I, Daniel H., personally challenge people to come out and help beat her last year’s donations of $10,000. You can make a difference to others.

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