Your support gives our kids a home, family, and community where they feel special, loved, and wanted.
Your gifts to Cookson Hills allow children to feel cherished. You help kids catch a glimpse of how our Creator sees them; valuable and worthy of love. This view is far more significant than Christmas memories; it impacts their heart.
To go from feeling unwanted to lavishly loved like Claire, or to realize you don’t have to be good to earn grace like Rose. Your gifts make kids question the lies they’ve believed about themselves. And for some, Christmas marks the start of a new chapter.
Claire came back from Thanksgiving break devastated. While visiting her family of origin, she discovered she had nothing left except what she had brought to Cookson Hills. Like her belongings, Claire felt discarded. But she had never experienced a Cookson Hills Christmas before.
She had no idea that 500+ individuals from 20+ churches and businesses were planning to send gifts to fill the homes. She had no idea she would be lavished with love and receive everything she had wished for and more.
Christmas morning, eight-year-old Rose sat waiting as the presents were sorted out for the family. When all were handed out, she looked at them in amazement and said, “I don’t deserve all these.” Her mother asked why she would say that, and Rose responded, “I haven’t been THIS good this year!”
It was a great opportunity for the family to talk about God’s grace and how we can do nothing to deserve anything from God, but he gave us the most wonderful gift, Jesus, which is why we celebrate this season.
The Christmas season at Cookson Hills is similar to one that could be experienced elsewhere. Activities in the community fill the days with joy and laughter: a school Christmas program, concert, ornament crafting, parade, and cookie making. But not all the kids enter this season with a glad and hopeful heart. Many have sad memories associated with this time of the year and can have difficulty getting through the holiday. You give each kid at Cookson Hills a community that supports them through difficult times and shows them hope.
