GERMANTOWN — During the holiday season, little miracles can happen. In Germantown, one woman's Facebook post resulted in thousands of items being donated to her, from dozens of people she knew and from strangers.
Normally Laura Backes’ Germantown garage isn't crowded with holiday donations.
“I have a mom group on Facebook. We did 25 children from 14 different families," she said about a donation drive she helped orchestrate last year. Helping 25 children during the holiday season is an incredibly respectable thing to do. Any amount of help to anyone during the holidays is commendable.
However, this year something special happened when she did her yearly reach-out on Facebook.
“We actually instead of my 200 items, we have probably gotten between 2,500 and 3,000 now.”
Laura blew her goal out of the water. Originally, she wanted to get 200 items donated, so she could give some of Hope Prima School's student body gifts. Plus, she already felt like she was asking for a lot so she made it clear they would be dollar store priced donations.
What she ended up with was donation after donation after donation. She estimates she has around 2,500 to 3,000 gifts she can give the entire 700 person student body and include the faculty and staff. These are not just dollar store gifts either. These are nice donations with a variety of price ranges.
“I don’t know what to say I’m speechless with it," she said.
Some of these donations come from friends and family, but a whole lot came from strangers or businesses who saw the post.
“And the last three days I’ve gotten about 13 deliveries from Amazon.”
So for all the things that have happened during 2020, mini-miracles like this show there is tons of good happening all around us. If you would like to contribute, you can reach out to her on Facebook by searching Laura Backes. However, her goal is to be able to give all the donations to the school on Saturday, so they can have time to wrap them and figure out which students/grades get what.
