The expression, “it is better to give than to receive” is so true at the best of the times, but none more so than at Christmas.

It is very easy to get caught up in the hype of Christmas and to focus on the gifts and what we would all like to receive as a present. This year, Joe Esera and I flipped the idea of gift receiving, to gift giving. We all at different times of our life have been fortunate enough to receive things in our world, but what would it look like to give to someone? How would we be able to give a gift to someone? Who would receive this gift? How would we feel after?

Before you know it, Joe was able to answer the questions of who, what, when how and why and we devised a plan to be able to give a present to someone who wouldn’t normally have a gift to open on Christmas Day.

Our first question was, how are we going to raise some money for our gift? So, we decided on making fudge cake but with a Christmas theme. We knew our client base well...yes, the teachers! Emails were duly sent out advising that we would be selling Christmas Fudge cake on a specific day for $2.50, first in first served and cash sales only please.

Well, we sold out in no time!! Our marketing strategy had worked so well that we could have probably sold over again, but let’s not be greedy and go with quality over quantity! Money that Joe raised was matched by a very kind benefactor, so we now had more money to buy a gift than we ever anticipated.

Shopping was completed at The Warehouse, where the strategy to buy a gift became one of, let us share the love amongst a few more people. We duly came back to school armed with gifts for a couple of children, a woman, and a man and of course the obligatory chocolates.... ( who doesn’t like nice chocolates), our part of the mission was almost complete.

The gifts were dropped off for St Vincent de Paul to be wrapped and distributed to the people that they know of in need. So, “The Circle of Love’ will be completed on Christmas Day when these deserving people receive their gifts, of which we will not get to see that part, but we all can certainly offer up a prayer for all people in the hope that they feel the love and prayers that have been given to them by Joe in undertaking this project.

Merry Christmas to you all.