Bringing Hope Home Delivers Christmas Gifts to Cancer Patients

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Bringing Hope Home Delivers Christmas Gifts to Cancer Patients

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Bringing Hope Home brings joy to families in Greater Philadelphia.

This became very clear to me as I spent a few hours on December 19, 2012 volunteering with this Wayne, PA organization whose mission is to financially care for families of cancer patients.  This week they are busy gathering, wrapping, and distributing gifts donated by corporations to dozens of families.  I had the pleasure to meet Paul, Loren, and Amy on December 6 when we scheduled Chad and I to deliver presents tomorrow, December 20.  However, I enjoyed the opportunity to help wrap gifts a day early as well.

I was impressed when I arrived how well things were organized.  They had signs hanging on the wall outside about a dozen offices that were currently vacant in the office complex where their office is located.  Each sign indicated that the gifts in the room were for a particular geographic region.  Inside the room were signs on the wall for each family in that region.  A printout detailed what the family asked for on their “wish list” for Christmas.  On the floor under the sign for the family were the presents purchased by corporations.  The gifts included scarves, gloves, boots, sweat pants, jackets, shirts, electronics, toys for boys and girls, and much more.

My first responsibility was to check the wish list of the family of a cancer patient with the actual presents purchased.  I then joined the folks from The O’Connor Group as we wrapped the presents.  It is my understanding volunteers will keep working this evening and tomorrow, working to get all the presents wrapped.

Gifts were organized by delivery routes around Greater PhiladelphiaMy hope is the families will be so excited to open their presents they won’t look at the wrapping.  As a friend of mine teased me when I shared the photo of what I had wrapped, my work looked like “a man had wrapped the presents.”  If you look carefully at the enlarged photo there are tears in the wrapping and tape everywhere.  Hey, I tried.

May God bless each of the families who receive these gifts.  May God bless all those who took the time and spent the money to purchase the gifts.  May God bless Bringing Hope Home and for the fine work they do in the community.

Tomorrow – Chad and I deliver the presents.

What on earth will Chad and I be like this time next year?

If what we experienced today delivering gifts with Paul Isenberg, Executive Director of Bringing Hope Home, is anything like what we will experience engaging in the wonderful work of organizations like his around the country, Chad and I will simply be changed men!  It puts the world in a whole new perspective!

Paul Isenberg shares a moment with Barbara and a family memberHow does it not shake up your life to watch Barbara, a woman who is a resident of an economically depressed neighborhood in North Philadelphia, just diagnosed with serious advanced stage cervical cancer, cry with joy as she received Christmas presents for her family?  This was genuine need.  This was genuine appreciation.  This was the true meaning of Christmas. This was thanks to the work of all those who have embraced the mission of Bringing Hope Home.

As we stood in Doris’ living room in a row home in South Philadelphia, listening to her describe how her cancer has spread from her lung to other organs, you could see the genuine love emanating from Paul.  He was humble. He invited the woman and her family into his “family”.  He asked her about her other needs.  He wanted to know how he can help  financially and how he could help make connections with top-notch medical care.  This man cares.  Why shouldn’t he?  He experienced his wife lose her battle with cancer nine years ago, a loss that led to the creation of this organization.

The toys that were delivered to the young children today will probably be broken before New Year’s Eve.  However, the gift of compassion that Bringing Hope Home brought to the families of Doris and Barbara will last a lifetime!

Paul Isenberg with Barbara and her family

There are so many movies with happy endings at Christmas.  The magic.  The Hollywood scripts that no one believes could ever be true.  However, what I witnessed today made the last scene of It’s A Wonderful Life look very believable!

Hey, everyone, Chad and I didn’t deserve the thank you’s we received from Doris and Barbara today.  I hopefully redirected them to the man and his wonderful organization who really made it happen.  We were just two men carrying presents from the car to the inside of the homes!

Thank you God for the Christmas present!  Christmas is real!

One More Thought

Yesterday, I wrapped presents at Bringing Hope Home.  It was truly a pleasure to work with the staff and volunteers in the office.  However, it was quite something else to actually deliver the presents.

With the driving we did through the streets of both North and South Philadelphia, it felt almost as physically exhausting as our drive to Morgantown, WV.  As touching as it was to watch Bringing Hope Home in action, we also were “touched” by the traffic in Philly, especially that not so lovely woman who shoe-horned her U-Haul into the one foot space between our bumper and Paul’s car in front of us.

It is easy to write “we delivered gifts” today.  That makes it seem so easy, doesn’t it?  Well, it wasn’t so easy.  Our adventure included the traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway at rush hour, meandering through narrow streets following a GPS, and ten thousands traffic lights.

What struck me today was how difficult the job of a charity really is.  The people who work in charities really do hard work.  I’m certain there are many days they feel overwhelmed and would like nothing better than to go home and relax.  However, they love the people they care for and that love helps them through all the tedious tasks that don’t get the appreciation of others.

Paul worked hard today finding the homes of these families – a labor of genuine love.  I hope everyone understands that – not just for Bringing Hope Home but also for all the charities.