Adopt-A-Family

We are so grateful to the Batavia Lions Club who kicked off the holiday season in early November hosting their annual Underwear Party at Bar Evolution and The Tea Tree. The cost of admission was new socks and/or underwear or $10 (or both if people were generous). Fun was had by all with wonderful raffles, a 50/50 raffle, and delicious complimentary snacks. In addition to bags and mounds of new underwear and socks, Batavia Lions also presented us with a check for $2,500 to ensure that adopted children had new underwear and socks as a part of their gift.

Can we say something about the children of our community? They are amazing! The Grizzlies Kids Club at Grace McWayne School collected over 635 boxes of cereal for Adopt-A-Family! Before they sent it off with us, they had a bit of fun with it. Please click on the video to see what they did. All families received 2-3 boxes of cereal, then extras were shared with seniors at Riverain Apartments, the Batavia Interfaith Food Pantry (175 lbs. of cereal), and Lazarus House.

Another amazing group of Batavia High School kiddos full of sunshine and the giving spirit, Girl Up, assembled Santa Spa Bags for the single moms of our families to encourage them to take care of themselves as they take care of their families. What a wonderful sentiment!

Mr. Clarey’s 3rd grade class also collected socks for Socktober and gift cards to be used for families!

The wonder women of Batavia Woman’s Club organized the stocking collection to ensure that each and every child would have an age-appropriate stocking filled with all sorts of goodies to accompany their gifts. In addition to their own members filling stockings, they recruited individuals, families, scout troops, and other groups to assist in this project!

Batavia Mothers’ Club Foundation members provided diapers, wipes, formula as well as a few extras for families with little ones who could benefit from these items! Thank you, wonderful mamas, for taking care of the littlest of littles in our community!

We were blessed this year with a new partnership: Batavia Rotary Club and St. Charles Breakfast Rotary Club and their program – Koats for Kids. They provided over 140 warm winter coats for our adopted children! This allowed many of our sponsors to focus on other necessities for their children.

We are thankful for the Batavia Women In Business who hosted a holiday luncheon benefitting both our Adopt-A-Family program and the wonderful Access Toy Drive, which collected funds for Adopt-A-Family shopping.

We appreciate the hard work of the staff at Batavia Public School District 101 in identifying families, gathering wish lists, and organizing gifts. We simply could not do this without our wonderful partnership. Not only did they spend countless hours on this project, many also adopted a family. A very special thank you to Amy Nelson, who is the heart of this program! 

We are grateful to our friends at Batavia Youth Baseball who assembled more than 40 Adopt-A-Bags (necessities like laundry detergent and toilet paper) and our friends at Geneva Cyclones Hockey who provided 10 bags. We sent out the call late in the game when we discovered we would not have enough bags and loads of Batavia parents responded so we had more than enough to cover our families and provide some for seniors, guests at Lazarus House, and food pantry families!

Our friends at Hearth & Hammer General ran a successful pajama drive to collect pjs for those especially-hard-to-buy-for teens! The BHS Dance Team also ran a drive for fun stuff for teens. The residents at Covenant Living at the Holmstad gathered toys during their toy drive for our children and Bikes for Batavia provided some bikes for our kids. Families also received grocery gift cards, many of which were provided by Chip In Batavia (who also adopted families) and ALDI corporate. We are also grateful to Bomba socks who donated new socks to us, and extras will be going to Lazarus House, Batavia VFW, and Mutual Ground. 

We are so grateful to Batavia Overseas VFW & Auxiliary 1197 who provided a home this year for Adopt-A-Family! It was a perfect location to come together in community. And a big shout-out to BEI Properties for setting us up in a space to stage and store all the moving pieces that make this event possible. And thank you to Evan Kulczycki, Batavia High School junior for capturing the work behind the scenes via video!

Gratitude to all of our sponsors across the western suburbs who adopted families or donated items, funds, or gift cards to bring joy to a family over the holiday season. Sponsors included individuals, families, neighbor groups, book clubs, church groups, scout troops, fire stations, organizations, and companies, a few include QT9, BFC Printing, Culver’s, Business to Business Logistics, OSI Group, Primo Water, Go To Technologies, and Abro Credit Union. 

We are eternally grateful to all of our volunteers without whom we could not carry out this monumental project. From school staff who helped to make sure all children had what they needed, to scouts who helped unload cars, to those who delivered gifts to families who had no way to pick up, to individuals/families and current and former Batavia United Way board members and staff, who jumped in to help where needed, we are tremendously thankful for this community! 

As families came to pick up their gifts, there were tears of joy and sighs of relief knowing that their children would have something under the tree this year. Gratitude from these families continues to pour in through phone calls, emails, and letters of thanks. Our sponsors and contributors can rest assured that they’ve made a difference in their adopted families’ lives.