Our big family has grown through the years and we have added spouses and our own children, who possess that same attitude of service to community. This has ballooned to the point of needing all hands on deck with over 150 volunteers to make this operation successful. As we age, some of us pass the baton or bulk of the hard work on to other members of our extended family, who are more able bodied.
\u00a0Fast forward to current day 2024. It takes an entire army of family and volunteers to execute this massive operation, including the youngest to the oldest family member doing something to make the wheels go around. \u00a0The process begins with my sister, Terry Mitchell and I, partnering with the Granite City School District Social Workers to obtain names of children and their families, who all receive gifts.\u00a0 Current day, the leaders of the pack happen to be my brother Joe, who gets donated trucks to move all the gifts, and obtains food gift cards, some donated for every family. In addition, his wife, our sister with a true servant\u2019s heart, Jamie, who orchestrates the collection and assembling of the gifts, including scheduling gift wrappers, bag fillers, etc. \u00a0In addition, the memory of our real straw boss lady, our oldest sister, CindyG lives on in her \u201cboss lady daughter, Emily Gavilsky-Rahn, who keeps us in line and the wheels rolling with correspondence to and from volunteers, who provide everything from purchasing gifts to volunteering.\u00a0 Kelsey Hobbie, longtime extended family member, partners with Twigs for food and hygiene products and schedules drivers to deliver to homes the day of Billie\u2019s Kids. \u00a0My brother Allan Schuler also coordinates the drivers on the day of delivery in a well-oiled machine. \u00a0The rest of the sibs from across the country, show up and work hard to make it successful and provide family support!
We could not do this without all of Granite City contributing and partnering with us. The Granite City School District Social Workers providing names and the GCHS Warrior Hockey Club donates games. Tina Besserman and Hershey\u2019s donate candy. Some blankets, hoodies and hats and gloves are donated by various organizations and church groups, in conjunction with various individuals bringing whatever they can contribute. Lisa Guilliams of Twigs, does an outstanding job partnering with us by providing food, personal supplies and everything but the kitchen sink for over 180 families. We have off duty GCPD officers attend and work the day of the event. There are other individuals and groups, too numerous to mention, but needless to say-we have an abundance of contributors and volunteers that make this work for children and families of this area.
Finally, the big day arrives! The Army of Billie\u2019s Kids is assembled at the distribution site. Our youngest family members and volunteers, from 7 years old on up, help by making coffee and hot chocolate and running it out to the cold drivers and workers. \u00a0The army of volunteers have numbered all family bags, children\u2019s gifts and extras to go into the vehicles for delivery. A line of volunteers run the items to the cars and off they go throughout the community, spreading good cheer and providing Christmas for hundreds of children and their families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our big family has grown through the years and we have added spouses and our own children, who possess that same attitude of service to community. This has ballooned to the point of needing all hands on deck with over 150 volunteers to make this operation successful. As we age, some of us pass the … Continue reading “Billie’s Kids”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-19386","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19387,"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19386\/revisions\/19387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}