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Health & Fitness

Adopting A Family A Grounding Experience

Our office raised $2,200 in just two days to adopt two local families for the holidays. What did we buy with the money? Not Xboxes or Iphones. These kids wanted winter coats and underwear.

Everyone knows that Christmas is the time for giving. Maybe so much so that many of us get so wrapped up in buying the most lavish gift or spending more than we planned.

Whether you stood in line for hours on Black Friday for a cheap Xbox for your kids or a new flat screen for your hubby, the mindset among Christmas shoppers is always the same: get a great gift to make someone you love happy.

But what about a perfect stranger? I really felt the power of the Christmas spirit when my office, Primary Residential Mortgage, raised $2,200 in just two days to “adopt” a needy family of six and another family of two through the Comprehensive Community Action Program in Cranston.

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But the one thing that was more astonishing than the generosity of my co-workers was the actual wants and needs of the children and mothers of these families. Before sending over the Christmas wish lists, one of the program employees explained to me that the children already understood that they had simply made “wish” lists, and that they would not likely receive everything on their list.

As I quickly skimmed the lists, I was surprised to never come across the words “Ipod” or “Wii” like I would with my nieces and nephews. I gazed through them again, intently looking for “Xbox” or “Iphone.” But none of
those words were present on those short lists.

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What I did see was that each child had checked boxes including coats and underwear, bedding and pajamas. The biggest “big ticket item” out of all of the children was a train set - a wish list item bordering extinction from today’s high-tech gadgets. For these families, love and happiness was counted in hats and gloves rather than Xbox games or flat screen TVs.

Sometimes Christmas is not just about the ones we love, but also the ones who need love. Our company is honored to be participating in the Adopt A Family program at the Comprehensive Community Action Program, and each of our employees became a little more grounded while reading through the family wish lists.

If you would like to join us or stay in the loop for any of our upcoming fundraisers and charitable partnerships, please feel free to check out our events page or contact me at Sbagwell@primeres.com.

If you are interested in adopting a family of your own for Christmas, the list
below is just a few of the local organizations who host a holiday adoption
program.

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