Scottish Rite Holiday initiative (2023)

At EFA, we aim to make a contribution to all the youth we can, and Scottish Rite for Children was one of the best places to do so. Scottish Rite for Children at Dallas (SRD) is a hospital located within our community and is always grateful for community donations and aid by both individual community members and charity organizations. We are so grateful to have had the priveleged opportunity of working with SRD.

As the first part of the donation, we wanted to create hand-written letters for pediatric patients at Scottish Rite to ensure our contribution was personal and heartfelt for each and every child we would reach. In order to do so, we held a card social on December 18th, 2023 with members of Reedy High School's EFA club chapter. This card social was a HUGE success! The lovely cards were distributed to patients at Scottish Rite along with the donations. We thank everyone who contributed to creating over 100 holiday cards for this initiative!

Our main donation to Scottish consisted of toys and items entailed on SRD's patient wishlist. We then set up a community toy drive and used previously fundraised sums from our past events to purchase toys, technology, board games, and arts & crafts for patients at Scottish Rite. We were sure to hit every listed item and provide a wide variety of donations for every age range and patient need. Community members were encouraged to join us in the donation process by contributing to the toy drive. We sent the wishlist out to our supporters and had a toy drive for this cause!

The holiday cards and the items acquired from the charitable purchase and toy drive were then taken down to Scottish Rite for Children in Dallas on December 29, 2023! We were delighted to be there and the experience itself was beyond rewarding, from the genuine and kind staff to the sweet and grateful patients! We hope all the toys brought a smile to the faces of each and every child they went to for the holidays. Even if it was in the slightest way, it was so valuable to be able to spread some holiday cheer with a small holiday gift for kids who might have been going through a difficult time.

It's important to remember that SRD does not have extra items like toys and pastime activities for their patients accounted for in their hospital budget. Although such items may be essential for the patients, the hospital relies on the community to provide such things, which is why the small contributions we made were of such large meaning for the hospital. We hope to continue working with SRD to make this holiday initiative annual and continue to do what we can for each patient!

In addition to that, we were so grateful to work with the manager of the development/donation department, Mrs. Stephanie Brigger. We thank her for the support she provided to EFA!

We were so happy to take part and help SRD's initiative! This donation meant so much to us and was an experience that was so heartwarming. We encourage everyone to provide to their local hospitals however they can because you never know what a small donation could do for a patient going through a difficult time. 

If you have similar goals that align with the mission of EFA or other donation initiatives you would like to suggest to us, feel free to reach out!

For any questions or inquiries, contact us today, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible! 

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