The Light We Kindled Together

The power of community and compassion raised $60k.

Christmas Eve community giveaway shot by Sayra Havranek.

This was the fifth year of our Christmas Eve fundraising effort in Yonkers, NY (my hometown) through We Have Stories, the nonprofit organization I founded in 2018. Five years of showing up, of believing, of daring to see one another fully—beyond the weight of need, beyond the veil of despair. Over the years, we've typically raised around $25,000 to assist 300 families, offering what light we could in the face of all this darkness. But this year, the road felt heavier. The donations from individual giving came in slower, more hesitant.

Ultimately, we fell a few thousand short of our individual fundraising goal.

I would be lying if I said that didn’t shake me, and fill me with questions too complex to answer right now. But then came my friends at the John Tolan Family Fund—who made a gift so large it reimagined the entire day. Their generosity transformed what could have been a modest event into something extraordinary.

With their support, and the many smaller acts of kindness that still remind me what is possible, we raised over $60,000. The most we have ever raised. We helped roughly 450 families—the most we have ever helped. And for the first time, we didn’t just bring one, but rather two trucks to South Yonkers. One carried toys, glittering with the promise of joy for children who in the neighborhood where I grew up, often learned to expect little. The other carried food and clothing, the necessities that we too often take for granted until we are forced to go without.

This was more than an event; it was a declaration. A declaration that even in the hardest of times, we are capable of showing up for one another in ways that make the impossible possible.

Photo by Sayra Havranek.

Of all the moments worth remembering—the sight of over a dozen friends and family coming together in shared purpose, or the tears that fell from community members at the mere thought that someone cared enough to bring this act of grace to their neighborhood—there is one that lingers in my mind. It is the image of a boy whose smile I cannot seem to let go.

Each year, I make it a point to go beyond the basics, to weave a little more wonder into some of our gifts. In past years, it’s been bikes gleaming with possibility or PlayStation 5 systems that lit up faces like fireworks. This year, it was three Nintendo Switch consoles, each accompanied by two games. One of which went to this boy, standing in the kind of unassuming way children do when they expect nothing.

I had noticed the boy, who couldn’t be more than eight or nine, helping his mother places cans and other food items in a bag, telling her that he didn’t need toys from the truck if it meant more food for his family. Hearing this, I decided to ask the boy and his mother to walk with me to the front of the truck where I was keeping the Nintendos.

The boy’s eyes widened as I knelt to his level, the crisp evening air wrapping around us like the soft edges of a worn quilt. His worn puffy jacket swallowing his slight frame. His sneakers scuffed the pavement as he fidgeted, unsure of what to expect. I reached into the red and white bag in the passenger seat. The Nintendo Switch box emerged, glossy and bright, with two games balanced on top like an offering.

His breath hitched, a small gasp escaping before his words tumbled out in disbelief. “Is this—” His voice cracked, and he looked at me, then back at the bundle in my hands. “Is this for me?”

“It’s all yours,” I said, smiling. “Merry Christmas.”

The boy’s hands shot to his face, covering his mouth as if holding in a scream. His wide, brown eyes glistened with tears, but he didn’t cry. Instead, he whispered, almost to himself, “No one’s ever—no one’s ever given me something like this before.”

His mother stood a few steps back, her arms crossed tight against the December chill, watching. Her lips parted slightly, and she blinked rapidly, the weight of her gratitude a quiet but palpable thing.

The boy clutched the console to his chest like it might disappear if he let go. “Thank you,” he said, over and over, his voice shaking. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Then, suddenly, his face lit up with the reckless joy only a child can muster. “I’m gonna play Mario all night! And Zelda—oh, man, I’ve never even played Zelda before!”

He spun to show his mother, lifting the box like a trophy. She nodded, her own smile soft but proud, and mouthed the words “Thank you” to me, a silent echo of her son’s joy.

This is what it means to give—not just gifts, but the small, radical acts of humanity that spark joy in a world so often indifferent.

The amazing tag team of Robert Jones, Jr. and Heidi Bailey giving out the final toys of the day. Photo by Sayra Havranek.

These are hard times. Hard mentally, hard economically, hard politically. The weight of these days presses down on us, demanding more than we often feel we have to give. It is no small thing, then, to ask for help in moments like these. To ask people to look beyond their own struggles and reach out a hand to someone else. It is no small thing to receive that help either, to see it manifest in acts of love, of belief, of faith in what we can be together.

So I cannot thank you enough. Those of you who give to these efforts—whether it is a dollar or a word of encouragement—please know, you keep me going. You remind me, again and again, of what is possible when we decide to see one another not as strangers, not as burdens, but as kin.

You make me believe that we can be more as a society. That even in the face of fear, of systems designed to divide us, we can still find ways to insist on our shared humanity. To insist that we will not only survive but that we will thrive—and that our thriving will include everyone.

---

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber of my Substack, it is crucial for sustaining my work. I make my writing accessible to all, but I will have to change that structure without paid subscriptions.