Friday, November 13, 2015Keep the Christmas Crazy Train Rolling, Please
Christmas Crazy version 2016 is off to a fantastic start, which is yet another very visible reminder that there are some truly amazing people in this world. If you're having a day where it would help to see that, go read the "official" Christmas Crazy page and add up the numbers that are there.
Did you do it? It's a crazy total, right? YOU GUYS DID THAT.
As has happened every year since we started this thing (in 2009 OMG), it feels like it might be a good idea to recap a few things just so they're in writing in a place that's easy to find. So, here goes!
1. I have often been asked why this whole thing revolves around domestic violence shelters. That is a bit of a long story, but it starts with me working with the software that is used by shelters to track demographics and services years ago. It's impossible to see their data, which includes details about how much money they have to provide those services, without wanting to fix something. Anything.
(An aside ... the current debacle with the state budget is the exact sort of thing that causes agencies that help domestic violence victims to shut down. Most agencies literally do not know how they will continue to operate into the new year if something doesn't happen soon. Complain to the politicians who represent you, please.)
So, I knew from seeing it with my own eyes that DV agencies manage to do an amazing amount of good with very little money. Since they are barely managing to stay open, they need help with anything that is considered "non-essential."
Christmas gifts for their child residents fall under that "non-essential" category.
2. I am often asked if they can just go to Toys for Tots or some other non-profit for help.
Nope.
While Toys for Tots and others do amazing work, they have some rules that make it nearly impossible for domestic violence agencies to depend on them. For example, the Pittsburgh Toys for Tots deadline for agencies is November 14th. The Center for Victims operates an emergency shelter where women and their children can stay for 30 days. The kids who are residents now will not be there for Christmas. The kids who will be there for Christmas haven't shown up at the doorstep yet. So, that early cutoff just doesn't work. Further complicating matters is the fact that Toys for Tots requires an address. The kids Christmas Crazy helps are often homeless. They might have a roof over their heads because they're staying in a shelter, but that's not "home."
3. People don't ask it, but I feel like they should ask why the toys are delivered to me and then I take them to the shelter. The answer to that is because the staff that works at Center for Victims is a lean one. They don't have extra time to be unboxing items and sorting and all of that stuff. So, I do it for them. I have box tear-down parties every Friday, in fact. I try very hard to make sure a whole bunch of toys just magically show up without creating a lot of work for the staff. They need to focus on helping kids in more direct ways, y'know?
If you want to make my box tear-down party a little more fun, here is the Amazon Wishlist. I often post photos of the unboxing and such to Instagram, so maybe you'll see that magic thing you picked out over there.
4. Speaking of the Amazon Wishlist, much of it is based on what I think kids will like. Go back to #2 in this list and you'll see why. We're sometimes buying toys for kids who aren't there yet. That's why there are usually a lot of books and a lot of "generic" toys like LEGO and Barbie. If you have any ideas for some toys that you don't see on the list but that you feel a kid (boy or girl, any age) would like, could you add it over here? It's seriously a ton of help, especially when you give me ideas for kids who don't like sparkle and glitter and such.
That said, I do get requests directly from the shelter. Some of the kids they serve live in the transitional shelter. It's a shelter where families can live for up to 12 months while they work out how to move forward in life. For those kids and for kids who go through counseling for an extended amount of time, the staff knows what they like and are able to sniff out some things that those kids are dreaming that Santa will deliver.
I always make sure those Santa wishes get delivered.
5. And that brings us to the last thing. The Amazon Wishlist is FANTASTIC. It really, really is. But, a little cash is good as well. Anybody who donates cash can be absolutely assured that every penny will be used to buy toys or gift cards for the kids. I always keep an eye out for bargains at Target and such (the daily 50% off Cartwheel toy, for example, often leads to good things), plus I grab things that are just plain cheaper at box stores. Like, dolls. For some reason, baby dolls are stupid expensive on Amazon. I always stop at Target or Walmart or wherever and grab several.
Oh, and cash is good for making sure Santa dreams come true.
Just click the reindeer to create that brand of magic.
So, let's do this thing. Let's make Christmas a little bit brighter for some kids.
Christmas Crazy. Again.
Just moments after I first set foot inside a domestic violence shelter, I realized something -- domestic violence doesn't have a face. You can think you know what "type of woman" will end up in a violent situation, but the reality is anyone can. Every time I helped an agency run a demographic report or churned through their data, I saw how little the woman they support had in common.
Possessing the knowledge that DV doesn't have a face is why I wasn't surprised to learn that one of the kindest, smartest, and seemingly most confident women I know had a story. Her story is very much so her own, but yet I've heard over and over again.
Her words are below. They're a very small part of her story. More of it is here.
I'm sharing her words because sometimes I think it's too easy to look away from domestic violence. We hear about things that have happened, and ignoring them seems to be the quickest way to make them go away. If we don't look at the videos of Ray Rice hitting his wife, for example, it's simple to focus on the football.
But we need to look.
And we need to help break the cycle.
There's a lot we can do to help break the cycle of domestic violence. One small thing is to show the kids who have entirely too much experience with violence that there is another way. There are people who care about them. They do matter.
It's Christmas Crazy time. Let's help break the cycle.
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Thank you for sharing your story, V. And thanks for always being one of those people who strives to create a world that's a little bit better than the one we knew yesterday.
A few days before the end of the semester, as I worked on a research paper in the living room, he came downstairs and sprawl out on the couch beside me. I had my work spread out over the coffee table and beside me on the couch. The standing floor lamp was adjusted so that I could see every single paper in the same light so as not to miss one detail in putting this paper together.
I'd spent so many years of my life, about ten by this point, running away in search of myself, that I had no idea who or what I was searching for. I always knew 'this isn't it' though. Now at my fourth college, already with a journalism degree that I didn't want to use, but enough credits in theology, literature, and psychology to start my own heady religion focusing on the analytical literary theory of modern day America, I was at it again, back to school, majoring in writing. I was close this time, too, to picking up another degree. This small liberal arts college seemed a good fit for me. I was making a few friends and found professors who offered committed support, I was playing in a band, I was really exploring my artist nature
- hell, I'd fitted an entire runway show earlier that year at the University with every piece born of my sewing machine, patternless. Yet I still carried the ever-engrained mantra of 'not good enough' which also included, 'no one will ever love you' and that southern standard, 'know your place,' in my mind.
He impatiently sat and waited for acknowledgement.
After a minute, he leaned over and with his foot, pushed the light a foot from me and out of my reach. I got up, moved it back, and sat back down.
I'm trying to finish this paper. It's due Tuesday. I've been researching for weeks and I just need to put it together.
After a minute, he leaned over and with his foot, pushed the light a foot from me and out of my reach. I got up, moved it back, and sat back down.
Seriously, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? Please stop. I'm doing homework.
After a minute, he leaned over and with his foot, pushed the light a foot from me and out of my reach. I got up to move it. With my back toward him, he shoved me, forcing me into the living room window. My craft table broke my fall, along with tiny jars of necklace clasps, chains, pendant backings, and pins and needles, thimbles, boxes of beads, buttons, and charms, various types of scissors, a collection of ribbon, wire, wire cutters, burlap string, chalk, charcoal, pastels and oils, X-Acto knives, ephemera, card making materials, and my handmade paper of all shapes, colors, styles, and sizes for jewelry and art yet to be made. My ready to launch etsy store was in shambles, a complete disarray on the floor around me.
I'd hit my head on the corner of the table, as I plunged to the ground taking everything down with me. My forehead was already starting to swell around the wound. I sat disoriented, not from the force of the shove, not even from the fall to the floor and the tiny pin pricks the met me on the ground, but the shock of what had come over this person to cause him to react so violently toward me. I'd done nothing to incite this, nothing to warrant this impromptu cage match in my living room. An unsolicited and unrequited game of slaps. but from behind, against a girl, that you supposedly love.
My god. What the hell. What. The. Hell.
He kneeled down and wiped his forearm across the coffee table, sending my books to the floor and my papers flying into the air. What papers he missed, he picked up and tore to shreds. By the time I'd made it to my feet, speechless and beyond anger and amazement to try and salvage anything I could, he'd run up the stairs into his office, slamming and locking the door behind.
I took a deep breath and with hands to my temples, shook my head. Tears welled up and silently slid down my cheeks. I felt the round lump growing on my forehead and I ran my fingers back and forth over it, from one side to the other, over and over.
Now I have to clean all this up.
