The Unit 49 2014 wrapping party at DesertView; photo courtesy of Marge Wong.
Ken and Ellen Perkins
We wanted to provide everyone an update from cold and icy New England where we are spending the holidays with our family.
The last week of school we borrowed the SBCO Kids’ Closet van on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then borrowed the Catalina Community Services (rebranded as Impact) truck on Thursday to deliver the gifts to Oracle, San Manuel, Mammoth and San Carlos. Our truckers drove over 400 miles to get the gifts to where they could be delivered to the needy families and Indian children. We work closely with Tribal Social Services as well as the school principals and superintendents to ensure that we are serving truly needy children and families. Special thanks are due to all the shoppers, wrappers, truckers and loaders who contributed their time and energy to buy and wrap the gifts and get them all delivered on time. We especially want to thank the small army of last minute shoppers that set aside their own shopping needs to respond to our requests to help us spend the donations that arrived late and needed to be spent on very short notice to cover those last few needy families and Indian children.
This year donations for the SaddleBrooke Community Outreach Adopt a Family Program were down somewhat from last year. Nevertheless, the program donors provided gifts for 90 families in Oracle, Mammoth and San Manuel as well as 190 Apache children on the San Carlos Reservation.
Just as a reminder for the coming year: There is no overhead charge for this project so 100% of gifts and cash donations go to the needy and your donations are still tax deductible. SaddleBrooke Community Outreach is a 501 (c)(3) not for profit organization. Contributions to SaddleBrooke Community Outreach, a qualifying charitable organization, are also eligible for the Arizona Tax Credit for contributions to Charities that Provide Assistance to the Working Poor. Additional information can be found on the Arizona Department of Revenue website (http://www.azdor.gov/TaxCredits/WorkingPoorTaxCredit.aspx).
We want to express our sincere thanks for the outpouring of support we received for this worthy program. We look forward to working with you all again next Christmas.
We wish you all a very happy, healthy and peaceful New Year.