COVINGTON, Ky. — As I become old, I make extra room for heartache in the course of the holidays due to the rising variety of family and friends members who’re not right here to have fun.
That record is even longer and sadder this yr as a result of my mother-in-law, Terry West, handed away immediately in Might.
Happily for everybody who knew and beloved Terry, her spirit lives on, in much more than the standard methods, due to the imprint she left on the center of Sandi Stonebraker. Sandi is the proprietor of Stoney’s Village Toy Shoppe in Covington.
A Christmas tree on the store’s entrance porch sparkles with the legacy of Terry’s kindness – her effort final yr to make it a “giving tree” to learn children staying on the Welcome House homeless shelter for girls and kids a number of blocks away.
Terry labored with Sandi and with Kelly Rose, the director of selling and growth at Welcome Home, to make the giving tree occur last year. And Sandi, an expensive good friend of Terry’s, was wanting to deliver it again this yr.
Lucy Might | WCPO
“It was such an exquisite expertise,” Sandi advised me. “And it’s a matter of carrying on Terry’s legacy and since I consider it’s essential that the little ones get up on Christmas morning with toys.”
Right here’s how Sandi defined it:
“On the giving tree are little tags with an image on the entrance and the worth on the again,” she mentioned. “The image on the entrance depicts the totally different gadgets that I promote in my retailer. So somebody would strategy the giving tree, seize a tag, deliver it to me and say, ‘I wish to donate this present to a baby. And I ring up the quantity.”
After dozens of puppets, board video games and different toys are bought for donation and picked up, Kelly and her crew cease by Stoney’s for all of it.
“After I got here to select up the toys, it was only a carload stuffed with Sandi’s superb, fantastic toys,” Kelly mentioned of final yr’s outcomes. “At Welcome Home, we’re so grateful to everybody who helps our mission and our company.”
‘She actually rallied this group’
Terry’s assist for Welcome Home prolonged past the vacations.
Not lengthy after she moved to Covington in late 2019, she noticed a discover on-line that the shelter wanted meals to be donated for the households there.
She referred to as Welcome Home and talked with Kelly. Terry defined that she had expertise as a caterer and provided to assist. Quickly, she was making home-cooked meals for as many as 40 girls and kids and delivering them to the Welcome Home shelter every week.
Christopher Schwarz
Terry cared deeply about these meals. I keep in mind many conversations about how she needed to make one thing wholesome but scrumptious that each the mothers and children would love. She deliberate particular menus for Valentine’s Day and Halloween. She was proud to listen to that her dinners have been the favorites every week. And she or he recruited mates and neighbors in Covington to assist make desserts and contribute cash and elements to the hassle.
“As a result of Terry and I have been primarily neighbors, we simply began working so shut with each other,” Kelly mentioned. “She actually rallied this group to get these meals to our girls and children.”
That kind of kindness is contagious. It unfold all through the group and even made Terry wish to do extra.
The giving tree supplied that chance final yr. And because of Sandi and Kelly, the kindness continues this December.
“I can’t think about what it could ever be prefer to get up with out a Christmas. And at Welcome Home, we actually, actually attempt to ensure that each youngster we serve will get a toy – or toys even,” Kelly mentioned. “That’s our aim, each vacation season, yearly, is to ensure that we’re actually fulfilling these wants for the youngsters that we serve.”
It’s laborious for me to think about waking as much as this Christmas with out Terry. However my aching coronary heart feels a bit of higher each time I see the giving tree on the porch at Stoney’s and take into consideration how her kindness lives on.
Lucy Might | WCPO
Extra information about the giving tree is available on the Stoney’s Village Toy Shoppe Facebook page. Items could be bought as donations for kids at Welcome Home via Dec. 20, 2021.
Extra information about Welcome House — and how you can help all year long — is available online, too.
Lucy Might writes concerning the individuals, locations and points that outline our area – to have fun what makes the Tri-State nice and shine a highlight on issues we have to deal with. Poverty is a crucial focus for Lucy and for WCPO 9. To achieve Lucy, electronic mail lucy.might@wcpo.com. Observe her on Twitter @LucyMayCincy.
