I know that when I do a charity endeavour and you are involved - you want to know and see along with me. That way you can enjoy the journey. After all, getting to see “what’s going on” is really part of the fun.

I thought for this post I would focus on the fourth family that I chose.

Who is the family ? (Real names are NOT used.)

The story is like this - This family consists of a mom and her adult handicapped daughter who live in one room of a two room apartment (Americans would usually call it a 4 room apartment -I think- but they don’t count the bathroom and kitchen here as rooms). The mom’s parents live in one room and the mom and daughter live in the other room. We are only focusing on the mom/daughter. (Mike wants me to check on the status of the older parents as well, so I will try to find out more about them.)

The mom is 62 and her daughter is 38. I will use google translate and put all the info here for you. You can work through this if you wish. Google translate doesn’t do a great job 100% of the time, but maybe you can get the gist. You can divide any of the Polish zloty numbers by 4 to get approximate US dollars at the current exchange rate.

I think you can read the needs and wishes.

I decided on this family because of the disabled daughter. I do not know the status on how disabled she is but enough so that she goes to special activities designed for the handicapped.

The volunteer told me her desires and likes are more like a teenager than a 38-year-old.

The hardest part of fulfilling the needs of this family was the wardrobe since the size requirements made it more difficult than if they had had more space. However, I found one, ordered it, and it has already arrived since I ordered it on line.

Mike and I haven’t gone and bought the upper cabinets yet, but since both mom and daughter live in one small room - ONE room - with ONE bed - the size of a full size bed (a hide-a-bed) - FULL or 54”- they need to use vertical space.

The bed is used as a place to sit and rest as well as sleep. There isn’t much space in the room for much of anything, but the biggest thing they need is a wardrobe to help them get organized and have space to put the things they do have. They could also use some upper kitchen cabinets for additional storage. We will get those when we go to a store like a Home Depot/Lowe’s hopefully in the next few days. I want to be all finished with this family in a few days as they probably are the easiest I am doing. (I am almost done!)

Here is the wardrobe I (WE - thank you!) bought for them! It’s about 35” wide x 90” tall.

It will end up being quite tall as that extra piece up top provides extra storage. But, they need it. According to the measurements, this will fit the needs and size of the room.

When the volunteers take the presents up to the room, they will also put together the wardrobe and install the cabinets in their room.

So…here’s what my living room liked earlier in the week after I had done a bit of shopping. :)

This year I bought interesting printed boxes with a Christmas theme for the food and cleaning supplies. That saves us from having to wrap the boxes - and they want us to wrap ALL the boxes so they look like presents - even the boxes with cleaning supplies in them!

I have red, silver, bronze, and green boxes. I will keep each family to a separate color - at least initially.

If I end up doing a fifth family (or possibly more if I have time/money) (which I hope to do), I will use up the last of all the boxes I have for the food/cleaning supplies and it will be a mix of colors. Lastly, I could wrap them like we did last year.

So, after I came home from shopping, I opened up the red boxes, put them together (they were shipped flat and you have to fold them - like origami - into the right shape) - and packed food in them. I also put all the cleaning supplies and personal hygiene supplies in other red boxes.

I put the things I think of as “gifts” in a separate pile. Then, Ewa, my local elf who doesn’t want her face on the internet, came over on Saturday for a couple of hours and we packed up almost everything with paper.

Let me show you what we got them. In addition to what they said they could use such as food and cleaning supplies and the wardrobe (boring things!) we got them these things:

For the younger lady (38, handicapped) - clothes as requested which include a fake fur vest, a sweater, black leg warmers, warm pantyhose/tights, and other things - in those Bon Prix boxes, black long winter boots, a set of towels, a new duvet cover and duvet cover set, a new pillow, some mascara, a microfiber blanket and costume jewelry earrings, some makeup in a kit that was given to me the other day, lip balm, and some fuzzy socks.

We wrote “K, 38” or “K,62” to indicate “kobieta, 38” or “kobieta, 62”. This way they can give the present to the right person. (Kobieta is the Polish word for ”woman”.)

For the mom (62 years old) - she is getting 2 jackets - a gray and a black jacket - suit style, a new black purse (she didn’t ask for a new purse, but I liked it so I got it for her and since I’m almost her age, I decided to do it), set of gray towels and duvet cover and duvet cover set to match her daughter’s, a new pillow, a new frying pan, a pulsometer, and a microfiber blanket, some toilet water (body splash perfume), and warm, a nice smelling candle, lip balm, and fuzzy socks.

I didn’t feel like we gave the mom a LOT but the purse was nice (very!) and the wardrobe will make a difference in their lives every day (plus the overhead cabinets). Apparently the two ladies share a kitchen with the mom’s parents as her parents have one room and the two women have one room. I want to add a set of kitchen towels to the collection, but I’ve not gotten those yet.

Below is representative of the types of things in the food boxes for the ladies. I do try to put in several oils as oil is expensive - but I’m wrapping it first in a plastic bag to help keep it from spilling on to the other things should it leak.

I’ve also decided to NOT give them each a quilt from our collection as they lack space. Since I do not have two quilts that are alike left and they leave their bed open all day - I decided to just give them the new duvets and matching covers and call it good. I’ll save the charity quilts for others who have more room.

This is the only family of the four families I’ve chosen which does not need any coal because they live in an apartment and not a house.

So far I’ve spent almost $1000 on these two ladies.

After I get the two upper cabinets and the kitchen towels plus any other small things I get - I am sure it will end up being more like $1200 for them.

Here’s where we stand on the gifts.

This pile of gifts is the food and cleaning supplies.

The box in front of the red boxes hasn’t been wrapped yet and will get wrapped in pretty wrapping paper after I wrap up the purse in Christmas paper as a present by itself. I will also stick in the kitchen towels - but Lidl’s towels were UGLY that they had in the store this past week. So I’ll hold off til I can find something I like.

What you are seeing on the boxes is this family’s code number. Also you see a number like “5/ “ We will go back and fill in the final number when we have a final tally, so the family and volunteers who deliver them will know they have have 26 boxes (so it will look like “5/26”) or whatever it ends up being. Right now we are at 21 boxes - but after the big one in front gets wrapped, that will be 22 and then the 2 upper cabinets will probably be four boxes total - as each corpus (main body) of the cabinet will be a box and then the doors will be separate boxes. As a result, this family will probably get 26 boxes. This number ensures that when delivering, the volunteers deliver that many packages to that family and don’t accidentally leave one at the collection center where we will deliver the presents.

And just to show you how I’m trying to keep track of the money - here’s what I’m doing. I will admit that I’m not be always exact on how the families break down as to cost. I’m trying - but one may get put in the wrong column - esp. when I buy things in bulk and then move them around (like socks).

I bought several 6 packs of socks for a decent price and will just use them for the ladies as needed. The fuzzy microfiber socks are so warm and comfy, I bought a bunch.

Otherwise, this year I’m trying to keep the food buying separate - so that on different days I will go and think, “Today I’m buying groceries for family number 3” or whatever. That way the receipt amount can just be recorded under that family’s total. I think you understand what I’m getting at. It’s easier than trying to decide if oil goes under this family or that.

After all that was written, I went back downstairs, took a few more photos and put all the boxes together in one place. Here is this “family’s” presents. I am quite pleased.

It wasn’t that much work to do it - and I’m not at all stressed. :) I even had some time to sew this past week - and design a couple more quilts for my UP greens series. The beauty of having enough time means I can break up the work into smaller chunks and do it and thoroughly enjoy it. The “Weekend of Miracles is December 11/12” as they call it - when the people will be getting their gifts.

And there you are - I am hoping that the gifts we give this year won’t just help them “this year” but that the extra storage space will encourage them for years to come. I like to think we are helping people for multiple years by buying things that they simply can’t afford by themselves but that will improve their quality of life.

If you’ve helped - thank you so very much. I’m still trying to raise another $900, so if you want to help, that would be wonderful. You can do so here. All of it goes to this project - nothing is taken out for fees or costs or gas or salaries or anything like that. Quilted Twins is covering the fees that the credit card charges so all can go towards the project!

Thanks so much for reading so far! We do appreciate you!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this! Thanks for coming along with me on my quilting/sewing journey!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store here!

Here’s one of the beauties we have!