Surprising the girls with new room makeovers, fresh bright colored paint, new bedding and accessories so each time they walk into their room they feel the love that others have for them and know that they belong.
"This is the best night of sleep I have had in a long time because I feel like its my own."
The moment I stepped into the home I knew that God had send me on an assignment. I asked if I could tour the facility and as I did heaviness filled heart and tears filled my eyes as I walked through the girls rooms seeing a few little stuffed animals on their beds and their clothes hanging in the closets. The space needed an updated with life and color added to it.
The realization hit me as I learned that 18 little girls lived there who have experienced horrible hardships and abuse and who all probably just wanted to be loved and feel like they belong. The interior decorator in me immediately started envisioning what the rooms could look like with color on the walls and new bedding. I left the home on a mission to make a change.
It was November and how perfect would it be to surprise the girls with new room makeovers and a huge Christmas Party! Selecting coordinating bedding, bedside tables and accessories with fun bold colors was so fun. My goal was to involve people in the community in this project with me, so I invited a few friends over and we began to build a 9' tall Angel Tree with over 200 Angel wings each one with an item selected for the project, with store, price and item listed. We partnered with Project 828 Organization in these efforts.
After doing a Facebook live sharing the story and the vision for the project, people from all over began to reach out wanting to sponsor wings. Those that were local came by and selected wings to sponsor. Before you know it packages arrived at my front door daily. At one point we had boxes lined from the porch all through the house leading to the Angel Tree.
We were overwhelmed at the response of others to get involved.
volunteered their time and came in and painted all the girls rooms that morning. A team of volunteers came out to help put all the beds back together and set the rooms up!
As the plan for the room make overs fell into place so perfectly so did the rest of the Christmas plans. My dear friend, Sherry Busby connected me to Sue Pfeil, an owner of Uptown Salons. They put together an angel tree at the salon to bless the girls with all their Christmas gifts!
The rooms turned out perfect! The colors were bold and welcoming. Each bedroom had a matching theme and on every bed we placed the girls stocking gifts. We purchased each girl flannel pjs, white fur light up slippers and a cup with their own name labeled full of goodies. The rest of the volunteer team arrived in their pjs and a fun party was about to take place.
We had volunteers stationed in each of the rooms and all the girls anxiously awaited their big surprise! They were so excited, some screamed with joy, some cried and some were in awe at the gift they were given! They each ran to their beds to see the gifts. After admiring the room they each got dressed in their new pjs and slippers and ran downstairs to the Christmas Tree where huge bags of gifts were waiting for each one.
That evening 18 girls were impacted in a way that they would never forget. Their Christmas was filled with laughter, excitement and joy overflowing in each of their hearts. All the volunteers as well as myself were just as impacted and just to see their eyes light up, the smiles on their faces and the hugs of gratitude that we received was so rewarding! The girls captured my heart that evening. Little did I know that this was just the beginning of the plan God had for us to do there.
Comments