For the twelfth year in a row, SAIC, a local technology company in El Paso, has reached out to Ysleta Lutheran Mission Human Care (YLM) to sponsor families for the Christmas season.

Forty employees volunteered to help provide for forty individuals, which meant seven families with children received gifts, as well as a generous box of food for their Christmas celebrations. Not only are the children given toys, they also receive clothes and shoes, and the parents are given gifts as well.

“We’ve done this for about thirty years with other organizations,” one of the SAIC employees explained the day they dropped off the gifts, already wrapped, and the boxes for the families, “But these last twelve years, we’ve enjoyed partnering with YLM.”

One of the gifts, a play kitchen with all of its little play food items, was donated by one of the employee’s 10-year old granddaughter. He expressed the joy of having the opportunity to witness his granddaughter’s generous heart to bless two sisters, 3 and 5, with their own play kitchen.

“There’s no words to express how grateful we are to the people who do this,” Fabiola, a mother from one of the seven sponsored families, shared when she came to pick up the gifts and food boxes the weekend after they were dropped off.

The gifts and food boxes were picked up the week before the Christmas weekend, with pictures shared by a couple of the families. Though the pictures are not of the greatest quality, the joy evident on their faces was a gift in itself for the SAIC employees who give generously every year.

If you would like to know how you can bring smiles to the faces of children, whether for Christmas or before the beginning of the new school year, reach out to Maritza Muñoz at (915) 858-2588 or email her at maritza.munoz@ylm.org to get more information on how you can be involved in making a difference through these simple acts of kindness!