Thank you to John Elkhay and his elves and staff at Chow Fun and Rick’s Roadhouse for the AWESOME time we had at our 5th annual Christmas Dinner on December 12.
An 8 year old girl new to our program (3 months ago) burst into tears when she walked into the restaurant. After taking a few minutes to console her and find out if she was okay, she was able to tell me that she was just scared because she had “never been in a restaurant before”. Of course she ended up having a great time and left with a BIG smile!
As John walked the room checking on all the kids, one of the older boys came over to me and asked quietly if it was okay for him to ask for more fries. He said he knew it was supposed to be for the kids (meaning little ones) and didn’t want to be greedy. [I tell you all the time, THESE ARE THE BEST KIDS ON THE PLANET!]
When gifts came, there were so many smiles and everyone remembered to say Thank you! No one open their gift when they returned to their seat. (NO< we don’t train them to do that, as someone asked me.) When I realized it after helping to distribute gifts, I told them they could open them! They were so excited. One 11 year old girl told me, “I really want to open it, but then again I don’t because I want to open it on Christmas!”
As they lined up to get on the bus, the kids took turns showing me their gifts and telling me how much they ate and really enjoyed the ice cream…
Finally, as we I was leaving with one of the teen boys, he asked me where I find “people like that”. When I asked for clarification, he said “People who do things for other people even though they don’t have to!” Made me almost cry that it is such an unusual thing in his world, but definitely made me happy that he recognized it and was obviously blessed by the generosity! It was also a great teaching moment!
Like him and ALL my kids, I am grateful to know so many “people like that” and have the privilege of sharing these opportunities with them!
They will talk about this for a long time!