Inside Education and Health Sciences
ECHO brings joy to over 200 children at Christmas
By Emily Clemenson
Image caption: Michelle Sherman, center in red, and other volunteers pose in front of the moving truck during the 2022 Distribution Day.
Every December, a couple weeks before Christmas, Michelle Sherman wakes up early to start the day she gets to play Santa Claus — Distribution Day. She drives to Hannah's Treasure Chest in Centerville, Ohio, to load up a rented moving truck with donated Christmas presents before the sun even rises.
The program is called Giving Angels and it is run by Hannah's Treasure Chest. Hannah's partners with a number of organizations to help families provide Christmas presents for their children. Sherman is a Family Advocate for the Empowering Children with Hope and Opportunity (ECHO) Program through the University of Dayton and works at high-need Catholic schools in the Dayton area. ECHO is able to enroll about 75 families in the Giving Angels program, which equates to about 200 children.
Every Distribution Day, Sherman's moving truck makes stops at two or three different sites where the parents arrange a time to pick up their family's gifts. This year's distribution will be on December 18.
Each enrolled child will receive about $100 worth of gifts — two toys and two clothing items from the child's wish list — and then each family will receive a household item and a grocery gift card, also usually valued at about $100, and wrapping paper.
Buy-in to the program is $10 per child, which can be hard for families with multiple children to afford. The difference comes out of donations made to the ECHO program.
"It’s a really great program, and it helps a lot of people," Sherman said. "We try to have fun with it — we have ECHO counselors and other volunteers at the schools to help with the distribution."
Sherman and Corinne Plas, the other ECHO Family Advocate, determine which families participate each year based on who is on their caseload and other hardships that a family may be facing.
One school parent is raising her children alongside her grandchildren. Money is often tight, and she said that working with Sherman and participating in Giving Angels has made a huge difference to her family. She has been fortunate to receive Giving Angels a couple of times.
"Michelle has been such a blessing to my family for almost 6 years," she said. "The very first year, I just broke down in tears because I couldn’t believe the blessings we received. They go beyond your expectations."
The cost to sponsor a child for Giving Angels is $10. Donations of any size are appreciated and can be made at go.udayton.edu/givingangels.
The ECHO program embeds family advocates and mental health therapists in 20 Catholic schools throughout the Dayton and Cincinnati region as a resource for students, their families, and the teachers and administrators. Learn more about the ECHO program here.
Each child is given two clothing items and two toy items. The family is given a household item, like the sets of pots and pans pictured here, and a Kroger gift card. Volunteers load all of the donated gift items into a moving van on Distribution Day to get them to the pickup spots.
Each child is given two clothing items and two toy items. The family is given a household item, like the sets of pots and pans pictured here, and a Kroger gift card. Volunteers load all of the donated gift items into a moving van on Distribution Day to get them to the pickup spots.
Families arrange a time to pick up the gifts at a designated time from one of the Catholic schools that ECHO serves. Rhonda Mercs, director of ECHO, carts boxes of gifts down the hall of one Catholic school.
Families arrange a time to pick up the gifts at a designated time from one of the Catholic schools that ECHO serves. Rhonda Mercs, director of ECHO, carts boxes of gifts down the hall of one Catholic school.
Volunteers sort through the donated gifts and gather them into family groupings.
Volunteers sort through the donated gifts and gather them into family groupings.
The donated gifts are put into large bags for the families to take home and wrap for their children.
The donated gifts are put into large bags for the families to take home and wrap for their children.
"We try to have fun with it," said Michelle Sherman.
"We try to have fun with it," said Michelle Sherman.
Families come to the pickup sites during a set window to pick up the donated gifts coordinated by Giving Angels and ECHO.