A Week with Good Samaritan Network’s Christmas Program – Wednesday

For those that have followed along of my coverage of the Good Samaritan Network of Hamilton County’s Christmas Distribution program, today’s pictures will show you the transition in setting up of the event happening on Saturday. You can go back to the post about Sunday or even yesterday’s and see a few pictures. Those pictures, however, don’t show as clearly the impact of the effort of the literally hundreds of volunteers up to this point. Today’s pictures do.

And let’s be clear, there are a ton of volunteers that are young and old from all areas of our community. Today’s included a paster, a Noblesville School Board member, moms, dads, kids, grandparents, and so many more. Everyone comes together with a singular focus – to help the kids and the people in our community that need just a bit more help.

Several people ask, “where does all this stuff come from?” You’d have to ask Good Samaritan for a complete answer. My understanding is that it is donated. These donations come from individuals as well as organizations such as companies. Many of the toys come from collection boxes around the community. There are trees and other things donated from companies as well. It truly is community helping community. The GSN staff works all year gathering and collecting.

What’s it Look Like?

So how do things look at the end of the day on Wednesday with just two more days left to set up. Here is a picture of the area containing food that will be donated. Teh boxes in the back contain food as well as the bags. This will again be part of what is provided to those that need help on Saturday.

Housewares and Such

I’ve mentioned that the event also includes providing houseware items as well as adult clothing. There are also a variety of holiday decorations. One entire section of the building set up with these items as shown in the below image.

The Toys and more….

I believe I’ve mentioned a few times now that it isn’t just toys. There are other items people could use help with. While the below picture looks like chaos, there are still two days to sort these items and put the wheels on the ground! This are includes outdoor toys, big play toys, as well as infant/toddler items such as cribs, strollers, and other large baby items.

But the main room is where things are most interesting. You can take a look at the picture below to see just how massive and amazing this event is. Note that the room is very chaotic. If you look at yesterday’s picture, there were lots of huge boxes. You still see a few in this picture, but most of the items are out of boxes. Over the next two days, these items will be sorted, shifted and primarily organized by age groups. Many of the volunteers will be helping to make this happen so that when Saturday’s event happens, it will be that much easier for families to find age-appropriate items.

But let me be clear by repeating what was stated in a previous day’s coverage of this event. Thousands of kids are being served at this event. While that looks like a massive number of toys, there won’t be such a massive amount come the end of day Saturday. Instead, most of these toys will be spread across the county helping a large number of families that might not otherwise have been able to afford such things.

https://www.gsnlive.org/Truly these are pictures of what happens when people set aside their differences and simply focus on helping others in our community. This is one of the things that makes Hamilton County so great. As a community, we are blessed to have organizations like Good Samaritan Network and Nancy Chance making all of this possible. And it is great to have hundreds of people volunteering to help pull it all together. Thank you.

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Again, I am in no way affiliated with Good Samaritan Network. I’m just a volunteer like the hundreds of others.