The giving season is in full swing

Deepa Bharath

Every year, Liz Phillips and her 10-year-old daughter, Sophie

Buchmueller, wait for the holidays just so they can give.

The mother and daughter spend a few days before Christmas shopping

for a family that wouldn’t have a Christmas otherwise.

Phillips, a longtime volunteer for the Westside charity Share Our

Selves, is now a case manager there who also coordinates the

organization’s Adopt-a-Family program.

Every year, nearly 1,500 families selected by the Newport-Mesa and

Santa Ana unified school districts benefit from this holiday program,

Share Our Selves spokeswoman Karen Harrington said.

“It started in a small way 35 years ago,” she said.

“Obviously, it’s grown tremendously over the years.”

As part of their Christmas package for each family, Phillips and

her daughter include gifts for each child in the family.

“The children are the most important part of the program,”

Phillips said.

“We put in at least two gifts for each child.

“But of course, we include things like gift certificates for the

parents as well.”

The children make a wish-list, which is given to donors.

A lot of times, food is on that list, Phillips said.

“We usually put in a gift certificate from one of the

supermarkets,” she said.

“We don’t know if another family would like what we normally have

for a holiday dinner.”

Sophie enjoys shopping for the children’s clothes the most,

Phillips said.

“I try to get a family where the kids are close to her age,” she

said.

“That way, she knows exactly what to get them and she gets all

excited about it.”

Sophie looks forward to shopping for these families every year.

“I also feel sad for these families because they can’t get their

own gifts,” she said.

“It’s sad that there are many families that might not have a

Christmas.”

For Phillips, it’s a way to teach her daughter about the realities

of the world, she said.

“My kids grew up with such affluence that it’s easy for them to

forget that there’s a whole other world out there,” Phillips said.

“They’re lucky and they should know that.

“They need to grow up with the responsibility and the obligation

to provide for people who don’t have what they have.”

The boxes are usually passed out to the families on Dec. 22, she

said.

This year, such boxes will hopefully handed out to 1,300 families,

Harrington said.

The thank-you notes Share Our Selves gets every year from the

families are touching, she said.

“A lot of times we’ll send copies of such letters to the donors so

they see the kind of impact they’ve had on these families with their

generosity,” Harrington said.