Adopt A Family Program Delivers Christmas Blessings
Marilyn Barksdale and her two daughters had come a long way since they left our Family Center a few months earlier. After a bitter family dispute left them homeless, they called the Hotline for the Homeless and found a room and a second chance here. Thirty days later, Marilyn joined our Follow-up Program, found an apartment in Independence, MO, and landed a job as a school custodian. But she still wasn’t in a place to provide much of a Christmas for her girls. So, she signed up for our Adopt a Family program, which pairs income-qualified families with sponsors from the community. Sponsors provide gifts and holiday food for their adopted family.
“We wouldn’t have had anything for Christmas, because I wasn’t able to give them anything,” Marilyn confides. “I was struggling.”
Sarah Henke, a veterinary technician from Kansas City, MO, adopted the Barksdales. “My great-grandmother had sponsored someone from City Union Mission, and I remembered that from when I was little,” says Sarah. “I felt God had blessed me with so much, I wanted to share that, and the Mission provided a wonderful opportunity for me.”
Marilyn and the girls drew up a wish list, and Sarah went shopping. “It was a lot of fun picking out the items they had on their list,” says Sarah.
A week before Christmas, Sarah and her husband, Brian, delivered the food and gifts to the Barksdales. “It was so wonderful, it almost brought me to tears,” Sarah remembers. “I already have plans to adopt a family in 2006.”
“My girls had the best Christmas that they’ve ever had. They got everything they wanted. I so appreciated everything,” Marilyn says. Of Sarah, she says, “This was a young woman, working and going to school, and she took time out and gave her money and her time to help total strangers. City Union Mission is truly anointed by God.”
