During the month of March, Home for Refugees partnered with Eastside Christian Church in Anaheim, California for their 21 Days of Service to create Easter baskets filled with plastic eggs, candy, and crafts for the children of the families in our community sponsorship program.
Through Easter baskets, we got to share the fun American egg hunt tradition with our refugee kids. Our original plan was to hand-deliver the baskets to our families who live locally in Orange County, but we got a good volunteer response to create baskets that we added the option to send Easter baskets through Amazon to our families across the United States.
We delivered baskets to our local families over two weekends. On the first weekend, our volunteers delivered seven baskets. Two of those baskets went to the Méndez* family's young daughters, who are recently arrived from Guatemala. It was a joy to see the smiles on the girls’ faces as they unpacked their baskets to find craft activities and colorful Easter eggs filled with candy. One of the daughters was so excited to receive her basket, that she asked for a second basket! We happened to bring an extra one with us, so we couldn’t help but give it to her. We watched as the girls shared the three baskets and dove into the candy with delight.
On the second weekend, 35 baskets were delivered locally. A few of the baskets went to our newest family arrival, the Azimi* family who are from Afghanistan. The Azimi had recently received some difficult family news, but the delivery of Easter baskets for their four kids brought smiles all around.
The Azimi family's daughter was visiting a neighbor’s house when the Easter baskets were delivered and she had no idea what was waiting for her at home. Meanwhile, another group of volunteers happened to deliver baskets to their neighbors the daughter was visiting. The neighboring Afghan family of six kids gleamed with excitement as they accepted the baskets and began looking through them. A volunteer recognized the Azimi's daughter and said, “Hi!” Our volunteer team chatted with the neighboring Afghan family with six kids for a bit. As the volunteers were leaving, the Azimi's daughter walked past the group with the biggest smile as she swung her basket to and fro that she had found had been dropped off at her apartment. She stopped every ten feet, turned around, and said, “hi!” to all the volunteers. Each volunteer left filled with joy at the memory of the daughter’s lively hellos and felt grateful to have shared a fun American tradition with our families.
During the week before Easter, eight Easter baskets kits were sent to our families across the U.S. In total, 50 kids received baskets across 16 refugee families. We are certain that each family's house was filled with smiles and cheer as they experienced the American Easter egg tradition.
*Names changed for security reasons.
Click below to watch a video of highlights from the distribution day.