Sender of Care Packages Gets Back More Than Just Letters

The Christmas catalogues are already arriving in the mail, glossy, full of promises, selling good cheer and guaranteed smiles.

“Make your Christmas hassle free,” is the message. “Start buying now.”

Many people do. Many more can’t.

When is your birthday. Let me know. I have something for you. What you did for us for Christmas. You are my No. 1 aunt because you a nice person and I love you to.

--Jimmy Green

Jimmy lives in Webb, Miss. He just turned 16. He wrote those words last month to Sandi, who is not his real aunt but is certainly his real friend. Sandi’s never been as poor as Jimmy, but she’s been close.

Now Sandi is giving back.

The Christmas that Jimmy was talking about was last year. Sandi sent him and his family 11 boxes of food, blankets, pots and pans, clothing, shoes and toys--because they needed it, because Sandi wanted to, and because it made them all feel good.

An organization called the Box Project put them in touch. Jimmy’s family--three brothers, two sisters and their mother--has only $483 in net income every month. That’s $932 less than the federal poverty standard for their family of six.

“I love getting letters in the mail,” Sandi says. “It’s great hearing from them. I envision them opening the packages I send.”

Sandi lives in Huntington Beach now, with her boyfriend and her four kids. The youngest is 6 months old. Fortunate is how Sandi, who’s 28, describes her life these days.

She is not on welfare anymore. Her children are all with her. For more than two years, her ex-husband had kept her sons away. Now this man never sees his children nor sends any support.

Sandi still doesn’t have a job, although she’s looking anywhere she can. At least her children are clothed and well-fed.

“We are not doing that bad,” Sandi says. “We have a house to live in. We can go to the refrigerator and get a drink. There’s food. These people are in a lot worse shape than we are. I’ve been in their place.”

I need you to pray for me. The children said that they glad for them clothes. I am get some of winter clothes for them because my baby boy be with a cold all time. So don’t you worry about it. Please right back.

From Velma To love Sandi The letters are sometimes hard to figure out. But Sandi’s had practice. She started sending packages to poor Mississippi families two years ago. She sends at least one package a month.

Mary Hudson was the first such friend Sandi met this way.

“Mary died one day before her 77th birthday,” Sandi says. Now her eyes cloud with the start of tears.

“In fact, I was just looking at my calendar. It said, ‘Mary 78.’ Her daughter, Fanny, used to send me notes. Mary couldn’t write. Fanny would tell me, ‘Her face lights up when you write her.’ ”

Mary, like all the families, needed the basics. One of Fanny’s letters last year mentioned that the propane gas tank outside their house had run dry on a Thursday and the man wouldn’t be by to refill it until the next week.

In the meantime, there was no heat and no way to cook.

“But Fanny said she wanted to thank me because I had sent an electric blanket, so that kept her mother warm,” Sandi says.

After that, Sandi used a new Discover credit card that had arrived in the mail to charge a microwave oven. She had it sent from Jackson, Miss., to the family’s home.

Will you love me like you love Jimmy. And my mother she buy for us and don’t by for her self. Will you help me to get my mother a Birth Day on Oct. 23, 1955. And she don’t by her no clothes to ware but she by fur us. I make a little money after school and I am 17 teen year old. May God Bless and the kids. Write me back.

From James Green When Sandi was down, it was a friend who helped her to make it back. Her former Sunday school teacher would write her letters, asking her how she was doing and enclosing little prayer booklets as well.

“Then she started sticking $20 in them,” Sandi says. “The first one, I sent it back. She said, ‘My husband gave it to me. Just take it.’ And I just cried. We went out and had pizza that night.”

The $20 bills kept coming, every two weeks or so, for maybe three months. Helping others, Sandi says, is her way of paying her friend back.

Sandi just sent off two packages to the Greens the other day. There was a sweat outfit for Velma, a shirt for Dianne, packages of macaroni and cheese, shampoo, conditioner, Kleenex, cold medicines, shaving cream, chocolate milk mix, cereal and two boxes of cake mix and frosting.

Sandi is hoping that somebody down there might bake some cakes. The family has four birthdays this month.

In any case, Sandi figures she’ll hear soon. Letters arrive all the time.

That makes Sandi feel good.