I wrote about Poverty and the Christmas Spirit in Hamilton County last week. This week I’ve had the chance to volunteer with Good Samaritan for their Holiday Assistance Program. The work has been hard and the event is still a little more than a day away.

Hundreds of volunteers have already helped at the fair grounds to get this facility ready for the assistance give-away. In the last two days, I’ve worked with numerous parents, company groups, the Fishers High School basketball team, kids from a local elementary school, and numerous others. All of these people spent time helping to set up an assistance program that will give away thousands of household items, toys, items of clothing, food, and bikes to those that could use a little assistance.

While work has been going into this program for months (if not the entire past year), I’ve only helped the last two days. What does this event look like? The following are pictures from setting up two of the three main rooms from Wednesday night. This first picture is the main room where toys will be given out:

The toy room is primarily toys and books that will be given out to families who will be able to “shop” (select) toys based on need. I also grabbed a quick shot of the housewares room:

The housewares room contains houseware items, more clothes, and a much more.

On Thursday, a lot was accomplished. The following is a picture of the toy room. You can see that with the help of the volunteers, a lot of items were spread out in the room. In addition to toys and books, this room also contains clothing for younger boys and girls as well as a few special items such as slippers and boots.

Here is the ‘food room’ on Thursday evening with some of the volunteers working hard!

Of course, there is still a lot of work to happen on Friday before the big event on Saturday. I’ll take additional pictures on Friday to give you more of an idea of the scope of this event.

While the picture show a lot of stuff across the rooms, it doesn’t mean there will be enough for those that need assistance. It is because more could always be used that I often put out an “ask”. If you are in the Hamilton County area, please consider donating ‘like new’ or even new toys and such to Good Samaritan Network of Hamilton County. They collect all year for this event. When you see that toy that is on clearance for a crazy low price, why not buy it and donate it to an organization like Good Samaritan?

I’ll do my best to post a few more pictures over the next two or three days! The housewares room looks completely different! Of course, if you follow me on Facebook, you’ll see pictures there!