History of Manassas, VA

Christmas Angels — Transcript

Can we talk about Christmas angels for a minute?

I'd like to share my story and why this is so important as a program for us. Um, I was raised by a blind street musician. I was the second youngest of five children. My father had been killed and uh, you know, life was tough all the time. But around Christmas time, it gets extra hard for kids, especially poor kids. Um, all the other kids, they're talking about the new Transformers that have come out or the Nike Air or Jordans or, you know, the fact that they're excited to see grandpa and grandma or dad will be home, whatever it is. Um, but that wasn't our reality. Our reality is we weren't expecting anything. Our mother, you know, she would go play in front of the Terminal Park liquor store and try to make enough money for groceries and that was it. Um, and that uh it must have been really hard for her. Um,

later on in my life, I was a teen father. I was on my own. I lived in low-income housing. I had two boys at home. I had my young son who was just a baby and I had my little brother who I had taken in um because that was the best place for him. And so I also know what it's like to be a parent just like my mother was sitting at home knowing that your kids just want to have a Christmas and you can't provide that for them. Um and I want to share a specific memory. I can remember we lived in Cedar and um just like every other year we thought there's not going to be any presents. You know, our our mom kind of prepared us for that, right? Um we were fortunate to just be together and um something magical happened. Um

there was uh a knock at the door and there was some people and uh they had boxes and in those boxes they had a full Christmas dinner and they had wrapped presents for all the kids. Um, I don't know what that program was called, but uh, many, many years later, I had a wonderful employee. Her name was Tara Lewis. Some of you in the community may know her, and she came to me, um, and she said, "Hey, boss. Um, you know, I'm part of this program called Secret Santa, and what we do is we buy presents for children who otherwise wouldn't have anything, and we get them clothes, and we feed them." And that sounded exactly like the program that gave us one amazing Christmas when I was a child. And um so she said, "Would you help?" And uh uh that day I I wrote a check for $10,000 and I said, "What else can we do?" And um she said, "Well, we need help coordinating. We need people to go shopping for all of these kids. Uh we need help wrapping. We need people to deliver." And it was a wonderful program. It ran for several years and then um the person who was running it volunteering um it became a little bit much for her and so she decided to step down and um lo and behold somebody else stepped up. Her name is Rita from Volunteer Nimo and there was a new version of the program created and that program is now called Christmas Angels and it runs to this day and the program is exactly the same. We need to raise awareness. We need to raise funds. Um, we need people to help us go shopping for these children. Um, we need people to help come wrap. And so, um, we're getting ready to get started to, um, coordinate my team. Um, you know, anyone from HR to our new admin to our finance directors, everyone at my company pitches in and it's just it's so wonderful. And, um, I should probably explain a little more about the program. Um, so you'll get a list of families, right? Depending on um whether you're shopping or whatever. And you'll get something like Johnny. He's 11. What he wants is Pokemon and what he needs is boots. And so we give you Johnny's name and the things that he wants. And we give you the money to go shopping. We actually take over Walmart for an entire day. And people come in, they volunteer, they shop for these kids. It's so wonderful. Um, and again, people are are highly encouraged to donate to the program, but if you can't donate, it's okay. We still need people to help. Um, you know, do the shopping, do the wrapping. So, there's many places you can help these kids. And at the end of the day, they get to have that same experience that I had. They get to wake up with Christmas presents on a morning that um they otherwise wouldn't wouldn't have had any presents. and uh mom and dad or mom or dad, you know, oftenimes it's not both. They get to have a Christmas dinner with their family and they get um they get a sense of normality or a sense of I don't know. I don't know what it what to call it, but for a day they don't feel quite so bad about themselves.

So anyways, um this year looks a little different for us. Um as many of you know, my my wife got cancer this year and so um I haven't been working as much. I took 10 months off to uh to help take care of her. Um and of course she hasn't been working at all and so um I need a little more help this year. I'm going to uh I have more time because I haven't been working as much. So I'm helping coordinate. Um but unfortunately we don't we don't have as much money as we we have in the past. But um that's not I'm not here to complain about that. Um we're still going to step up. So um we'll get us started. We're going to donate the first $5,000 um to the program. And uh if you can give $5, 10 people buy a kid a pair of boots or present or something, right? So please don't think any donation is too small. um if you can give more if you're in the real estate community like we are for instance you know many of us are very fortunate and um we can afford to give a little more. So if you can I'll be posting next week about how to donate for this program specifically but even if you can't even if you have time and no money um we would love for you to help us go shopping for these kids. We would love for you to help us come wrap presents and most of all we would love for you to help us spread the word. Um I've been hearing lots of stories. I heard about Colton McNeel who used to work at our company and apparently his company, his accounting firm now has taken on um sponsorship of this program as well. I heard from Tara who works for Don Walton and Associates now and she's reached out and she said, "How can I help?" And um it's just amazing. Lots of people are already reaching out saying, "Hey, when are you running the program? How can we help?" And so, um, my videographer is off sick this week. I'm doing this by myself, trying to do this in one take. Um, probably be all embarrassed because I cried on video a little bit, but whatever. It's real, right?

It's um, it's an emotional year. And, uh, we met with Rita already, and there's there's more families than ever who need help. And so if you can help um first and foremost this post just share it on your social media. Ask people to watch it. Ask people to either donate, share the post themselves, come help us shop, come help us wrap presents, whatever you can do. Um and uh yeah, then of course like and comment. I would love for you to comment below if you're willing to help. just say, "I'll help," or, "I'll try." And then that way, um, I'll know who you are and where to find you when it's time to start wrapping presents. So, um, guys, it's going to be a wonderful Christmas for a lot of us. And, um, I think we can make it a wonderful Christmas for a whole lot more people if we come together on this. So, again, it's Christmas angels. Please share this and, um, anything you can do to help. Thanks.

Note: This is a verbatim transcript; wording, pauses, and informal language are intentionally preserved.