The holidays are upon us and it is an exciting time of year for many! Yet for some this is a difficult time of year. We are thankful for the many organizations that work tirelessly to help those in need during this season. Everyone deserves to have some holiday spirit this time of year and Elizabeth Fry Society agrees. We were lucky to partner with them at the end of November to help with a special holiday project.

The Need

Elizabeth Fry Society works with incarcerated women and children to support them in many ways. They provide housing for these women, basic needs and supplies, and help them get jobs and integrate into society. During the holiday season they host a toy shop for their members to provide gifts for children for the holidays. The toys are donated and provided free of charge to the women and children in their programs. Our team was lucky enough to not only donate toys, but also help decorate the store for the holidays.

The Impact

We reached out to some local companies and asked them to bring donations and decorations for the toy shop. We all gathered together and each team got to decorate their own Christmas tree (5 trees in total) and their own shelving unit of toys. Many wonderful donations of items for ages 12-18 were donated which was a big need for Elizabeth Fry Society. They had lots of toys available for younger ages but needed some more for teenagers to enjoy. Each team brought decorations and we hosted a decorating competition! Thanks to these donations many local children and families will have gifts this holiday season.

The Companies

We had five companies join us at Elizabeth Fry Society. The companies that attended were SALUS Safety, BLUME, Bally's Interactive, Event Temple, and Guayaki. Each group brought their own decor and some donations for the toy store. We hosted a competition and had each group name their teams. The team names were as follows:  Help on a Shelf (SALUS), Blitzen Temple (Event Temple), Holiday Blume (BLUME), Yerba Mates (Guayaki), and Jolly Bally (Bally's Ineractive). If we were going off team names SALUS would win, but we had lots of decor to judge first. The winning teams for decor were Jolly Bally and Yerba Mates. Everyone on the winning teams got a small prize from both Elizabeth Fry and Purposely.