As we count down the days until Christmas, many young people are thinking about their Christmas lists and what will be under the tree for them on Christmas morning. For 11-year-old Pixie, her thoughts turn to those who may not be able to experience the joy of opening a pile of gifts every 25th of December.
Over the last few years, Pixie became aware of the YMCA’s Giving Tree that collects presents to give to students at Elliott Elementary School in Lincoln. In 2019, she wanted to give back.
“She had seen the Giving Trees and mentioned that she would like to buy a gift for one of those trees,” commented Pixie’s mother Nadia.
Nadia owns a business that sells hand-sewn items and Pixie has added and sold some things of her own as well (scrunchies, hair ties, etc.). Last year her business hosted their first holiday open house and held a bake sale with all proceeds going to buying gifts for the Giving Tree. Pixie and her grandma made lots of goodies to sell and ended up with enough money to buy eight gifts!
“She was so proud,” said Nadia. “She and I went to Target and loaded up the cart with all sorts of fun toys. That was her (Pixie’s) favorite part-the shopping!”
Fast forward to 2020, when COVID prevented Nadia’s business from hosting an open house. Pixie still wanted to give to the Giving Tree, but needed to find a new way to raise money. She came up with the idea of making a gift that people would like to purchase for gifts and began producing a sugar scrub. Pixie and Nadia took a few pictures and posted them on Facebook.
“Little did we know, she’d end up making over 60 jars of sugar scrub and making enough money to purchase more than 20 gifts!”, said Nadia.
So once again, the duo made their Target run (masked up this time), loaded up their cart, and on December 1 dropped off those gifts to the Northeast YMCA to be delivered to boys and girls at Elliott Elementary later this month.
“Even though it looked a little bit different this year, we all are overjoyed with the outcome,” said the proud mom.
If you would like to contribute to the 2020 Giving Tree, the deadline to drop off gifts is Friday, December 4. More information about the initiative can be found at www.ymcalincoln.org/giving-tree.
