Memorial Assistance Ministries is in the process of collecting new toys and blankets as part of its Christmas Share program.
The program started about 15 years ago when members of faith congregations would gather toys and blankets for families in need in the community and has evolved to become an organized initiative by MAM.
This year it is sponsoring 400 children whose parents will come by the MAM building to “shop for toys and blankets for their children in some of the classrooms that have been set up as Santa’s workshops where the toys and blankets have been sorted.
“A couple years ago, we changed up the format a little bit, so the focus is on clients who participate in one of our developmental programs,” explained Matthew Cox, senior vice president of programs at MAM. “As kind of a reward for folks who are really seeking deep to develop themselves, to get better jobs, to do better for their families, we invite them to come to MAM over the next couple weeks. Brand new toys and blankets are all displayed by age, and then the parents come in to ‘shop’ for the kids, so they get to choose the gifts they’ll walk away with.”
A lot of the gifts for MAM’s Christmas Share program come from individual donations, but many come from local businesses who ask people to bring a new toy or blanket to the holiday party to be donated or from local chambers of commerce who collect new toys and blankets at meetings.
MAM”s mission is “to build stable families, a dynamic workforce and vibrant communities...together!’ with a philosophy of service of “personalized support, believing that every client is capable, creative, and whole.”
It offers a variety of services year round, the largest of which are employment services and English as a second language classes.
For employment services, MAM helps teach clients the skill and information they would need to be prepared for good jobs, provides resume help and mock interviews, and shares other job-seeking strategies.
MAM offers ESL classes to about 1,200 non-native English speaking adults a year with six levels of classes ranging from basic beginner English to advanced conversational English.
Cox said that, in addition to donations specifically for the Christmas Share program, MAM receives a large amount of financial donations during the holiday/end of the year time.
“I think people in the community — corporations too, but primarily individuals — really start to see it as the time to be able to help their neighbors who might be struggling,” he said. “Those are funds that we can use year-round.”
Memorial Assistance Ministries was founded in 1982 during the oil bust as a result of 14 local congregations, 13 churches and one synagogue, developing a network to help provide emergency services for families living in poverty.
Many people, especially in Houston, had lost their jobs during the oil bust.
For its first 15-20 years, MAM was run entirely by volunteers with no paid staff, but it grew to the point where it was necessary to hire paid staff, though it still relies on a network of hundreds of volunteers to provide its services.
elliott.lapin@hearst.com
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