Benny Westcott
For 18 years Holley Church has been delivering gift boxes to Sweet Home School District employees. This year they delivered the most ever, 431, on Friday. The boxes went to every single employee of the district, including school board members, as well as to Little Promises Child Care and Sweet Home Charter School employees.
The theme for the boxes this year was “a little something to C you through” with the boxes containing the three C’s of cookies, caffeine and chocolate – the caffeine coming in the form of a $5 gift card to The Coffee Hut.
“This year The Coffee Hut really helped us out by providing the coffee gift card at a discount,” Jennifer Hill, administrator at the church, said. “The Coffee Hut was a great partner with us to make that happen.”
Church members, about 45 of them, spent three hours putting the boxes together on Sunday. Then all throughout the week team members, around 60 in total, continued to chip away at the project.
“As we’re tying on bows and those kinds of things, we’re praying over that person, because every one of them has a customized name tag,” Hill said. “We don’t just slap a generic tag on there. We want it to be customized with their name.” Each box is customized with the corresponding school’s colors as well.
“Basically it’s just our little way of telling them thank you for teaching and helping with our kids, we’re grateful for you, and we’re praying for you,” Hill said. “It’s just a simple little gesture, but I think they appreciate someone thinking of them.”
Leaving no stone unturned, Holley Church even had boxes made for positions that aren’t filled yet at the district, leaving a blank space on the name card to be written on when a person is chosen for the role.
18 years ago the church started with just Holley Elementary School, giving teachers their school supplies. Then they added Crawfordsville Elementary (which no longer exists).
“The teachers loved it,” Hill said. “So then I just had this big dream, like, what if we could do it for everybody? Not just the teachers but all the staff at all the schools. Everybody told me I was crazy. But I was like, no, I think we can do it.”
One year they bought everybody Twinkie boxes, dressing every single Twinkie as a different superhero. Another year featured popcorn buckets with Redbox codes in them for a free movie.
But Hill’s favorite theme was “seven ways to have a ball this year.” The church members handmade gumball machines with terracotta pots and saucers, which took about three weeks to prepare.
“They were so good people thought we bought the gumball machines,” Hill said.
School district employees look forward to the day of arrival. When Hill contacts the district to get a list of employees, she said the secretary asks her “People are already anticipating, what are you going to do this year? How are you going to top last year?”
Of course, it takes a village to make the idea a reality. “We can have ideas about something but it doesn’t happen unless the whole church comes together,” Holley Church Pastor Kevin Hill said.
Some teachers have even started a collection of the annual gifts. Jennifer Hill said “I have had long-term school employees tell me I have every tag you guys have ever done hanging on my bulletin board, and when the day gets really hard I look at those and it reminds me that you guys are praying for me.”