Each year our CrossOver Holiday Families program provides holiday cheer to families in need. Due to COVID-19, we reimagined the program this year to ensure the safety of everyone involved. The new gift card-based format emphasized equity and empowerment for patients, allowing them to purchase presents for their children and to celebrate in their own way.
Thanks to your generous support, the 2020 Holiday Families program was a great blessing to CrossOver patients.
- 126 donors (individuals, couples, families, local businesses, church groups and other groups) gave gift cards or funds to the program.
- Overall, our donors gave $27,600 worth of Walmart gift cards to assist patients this holiday season.
- The 100 patients and their families in the program were given a total of $24,250 in gift cards, impacting more than 300 individuals.
- Each family received a total number of gift cards based on their household size, with an average gift of $250.
- We surpassed our original fundraising goal, so our social work team has set aside the additional $4,000 in donated gift cards to provide throughout December to other patients not in the program.
- Children in the program were also given one of 300 new stuffed animals donated by Southside SPCA.
A big thank you to our staff team that coordinated this program—Anna Cerrato, MA, social work program manager; Melissa Ellison, MSW, family advocate social worker; and Valerie Murphy, MSW, grants manager. Special thanks as well to Kelsey Harry, who has been a volunteer at CrossOver for three years as part of the Bonner Scholars Program at University of Richmond. Kelsey helped manage communications with program donors and handwrote 100 personalized greeting cards for each family.
Most of all, thanks to all the donors who made possible this extraordinary support for our families in this particularly challenging year.