Villa Maria Students and Families Sponsor Over 150 Children for Christmas

On December 1, students and families from Villa Maria Academy once again were Villa Angels, as they dropped off their over 150 bags of gifts to the school to be donated to children who they sponsored through the Delaware Valley Children’s Charity Holiday Program.

Villa is so blessed that we were able to offer the Villa community the opportunity to “adopt” a child or children in need, through our Villa Angel Program. Villa proudly partnered again this year with the Delaware Valley Children’s Charity (dvcconline.org) to bring this very special program to the hearts of the Villa Maria community.

For several years now, Villa families have been sponsoring children through the DVCC’s Holiday Program which matches sponsors with children in need. As sponsors, families commit to providing for their assigned child for the holidays. The suggested items such as warm clothing, toys and food for the child help to provide comfort and delight during the winter season.

Because of the overwhelming generosity of Villa families and friends, Villa was privileged to sponsor over 150 children! “This is one of my favorite things we do here at Villa,” said Jennifer Nehr, a Villa mom and coordinator of the Villa Angel program. “Our families are so generous!” Villa was also blessed to have two of our seventh graders as Youth Ambassadors for the Delaware Valley Children’s Charity, Alexandra Trebelev and Norah Crowley. Both girls help to foster interest and support in DVCC among friends and family, as well as running and managing special projects including the Holiday Program and the Easter basket drive. Each of these charity drives Villa participates in are wonderful examples of kids helping kids.

Service is a key leadership tenet that for children, needs to be taught and modeled. While it may be too early to burden young children with such a weighty imperative of a life lived for others, Villa continually teaches them the beauty of Jesus’ model. All it takes is one act of selflessness to open children’s eyes to the joy of service.

Villa’s collection of gifts took place on December 1 and 2. We were so happy to be a part of #GIVINGTUESDAY this year on December 1. Cars lined the Motherhouse drive in the morning and the generosity from families was overwhelming! Bags overloaded with gifts and bicycles galore, gifts tied with ribbons and bows, filled the bins on their way to the meeting room. The DVCC truck arrived on Thursday morning to load the gifts onto “Santa’s sleigh” for another successful year of Christmas deliveries to needy children in the Delaware Valley.

Thank you to all our Villa Angels for helping to give over 150 children a wonderful Christmas! And to Allie and Norah, our two seventh grade Delaware Valley Children’s Charity Youth Ambassadors and their volunteers for preparing the envelopes for our sponsors! And a big thank you to Villa mom, Jen Nehr, for organizing the program at Villa and your team of volunteers for helping to collect all the gifts! We are grateful to all of you.