The Basket of Joy was filled and fulfilled for the 24th consecutive year Saturday.
‘Tis the season to share.
By midafternoon, six seniors who live on Osceola Street and 6,500 others received their red-and-green woven baskets, wrapped in yellow plastic with a bow and packed with assorted fruit, candy, tea and holiday cards drawn by area students.
“This is the sweetest thing in the world,” one of the elderly women in the apartment building told me. She has been alone for 20 years — but has been a regular recipient of the gift basket. “It always means so much to me. Please, thank everyone.”
You’re helping to make home-bound, desolate senior citizens feel cheerful and loved during the holidays.
Early Saturday morning, hundreds of volunteers gathered at the warehouse provided by the Denver Mattress factory to assemble and distribute the baskets. Many of the volunteers have been involved since we began the project in 1988. Arden “Denny” Gray joined the assembly line the first year, asked what more he could do and has become a principal organizer and tireless worker since.
“I feel we can assist in two ways — contribute our money, and contribute our time and effort. Like a lot of others here, I do both. The Basket of Joy is truly worthwhile,” Gray said.
For me, BoJ — Job spelled backward, but it’s a Joy, not a Job — was payback. When I was a young boy living in government housing (with an older boy named Elvis Presley playing his guitar on the porch a few doors away), my mom pulled me several blocks to the Memphis, Tenn., convention center. The newspaper had a special Christmas program called “Goodfellows.” My parents were given a bag of groceries, and I got a toy firetruck. (The replica on my desk serves as a daily reminder.)
The Basket of Joy was expanded by The Denver Post in 1992 to become the annual mammoth Season To Share holiday campaign, which last year raised from 6,600 readers, combined with a 50 percent matching donation from the McCormick Foundation, a record amount of more than $2.7 million to provide funds to 71 local nonprofit organizations.
This year The Post’s Season To Share will surpass $58 million in total contributions the past two decades.
It’s a Miracle on West Colfax Avenue.
I cry every year writing about how in such difficult times people throughout Colorado can be so charitable to the elderly, the hungry, the homeless, the people in need of health care and, most especially, the girls, the boys and the babies.
Among the youth-oriented organizations that have received grants are Denver Kids Inc., Colorado Youth At Risk, Colorado Youth For A Change, The Children’s Hospital Foundation, America Scores Denver, Colorado Uplift, Boys and Girls Clubs, the Rocky Mountain Youth Clinic, Smart-Girl, YouthBiz, Summer Scholars, Kids In Need of Denistry, The I Have A Dream Foundation, Adams 14 Education Foundation and YESS Institute.
The list goes on and on. There’s a lot more than a red firetruck. Those groups and the youth they serve are the hope of our metropolitan area, state and the country.
But let’s not forget the senior centers responsible for our glorious past.
In my 200 columns a year, I try to entertain, inform and exercise a right to opinion about sports.
So, excuse me once a year if I beg for your bucks. But there is big bang for your bucks.
Season To Share, in conjunction with the McCormack Foundation, uses none of the money donated for administrative costs; 100 percent of the contributions are passed along in grants to the organizations that follow rigid application. Donations are tax-deductible.
Most important, the donations do good. You can be a goodfellow, as I know from being on both sides.
You, or your company, can donate from $5 to $5,000, or, obviously, more.
As I offered last year, for a $5,000 donation, you have to spend the day with me. For $10,000, you don’t have to spend the day with me. For a $20,000 donation, you can write this column for a day — and express your view about Tim Tebow — and I’ll give you the shirt off my back.
Here’s how to donate:
Go to the
and fill out the form. Credit cards certainly are accepted. You may write a check and send it to “Season To Share” in care of The Denver Post, 101 W. Colfax, Attn: Kristin Stork, Denver, CO 80202. Or you can call 800-518-3972 to get more information.
In essence, your donation is the real basket of joy. As the lady said, thank you everyone.
I now return you to sports.
Woody Paige: 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com
