Picture, if you will, the most joyous time of year. Warm family to make you feel loved, happy friends you can’t live without, wonderful food with food comas to match, and special presents you’ve been hinting at all year wrapped up into one memorable holiday experience. No matter what holiday arises, there is no question why this time of year is everyone’s favorite.
Everyone loves Christmas, but sadly not everyone will get to celebrate the joyous holiday the way most people do. Those people are the young, foster children and orphans of St. Maarten along with other less fortunate ones. For them, Christmas cheer is about having the basic necessities and being thankful for the little they have. Oftentimes, they don’t even get to have presents, much less a tree to put them under.
K1 Britannia is a charity devoted to the aid of less fortunate children on St. Maarten and not only have the volunteers seen this need, they are making strides to ensure all children have something special this Christmas and every other Christmas to come. What started as a small project to provide little children with Holiday love has grown over the past few years into what has to be one of the more imaginative forms of charity.
The way the charity is set up is that there are hundreds of decorative Angels adorning the large Christmas tree at the old Government Administration Building. Volunteers will ask you to select your very own Angel, each of which will have a number representing children of varying ages and interests. The number will come with information about the child, i.e., the gender, ideas of what you can purchase them. They will ask you to bring the gift back to the Square and once you return, you will be presented with the Angel, which you can take home and hang on your tree.
In previous years, hundreds of Angels represented the hundreds of personalized presents given to children of different walks of life. Many of them were orphans or in foster care; others were young children in the Ms. Lalie Center, and the sweethearts at Sister Basilia Center. This year’s number has been raised to over 600 children in an attempt to include all of the little ones in the Social Service system. It is the hope of K1 Britannia that no child on St. Maarten goes without even the tiniest happiness at Christmastime.
During the days of December 16 to 18, the volunteers will work tirelessly from sun up to sun down, and sometimes longer, dedicated to the one goal. Want to do more than just give presents? Give the gift of your time as a K1 Britannia volunteer this year. Who knows? You might actually become a regular. At the end of the gift collection, the volunteers round up the gifts, wrap the presents that need wrapping, and save them for the Christmas party at John Larmonie Center where they will be given to the children they belong to.
This is a really amazing endeavor, especially for the forgotten children during the holiday season. Christmas is made all the better by traditions. Make the K1 Britannia Christmas Angels one of your family and friends’ traditions as well. The more people you bring along, the more children are guaranteed to have a happy Christmas this year! Don’t buy just one present, buy two or three. You can even introduce the people at your office to the tradition.
Hey! Bring your neighbors! Get everyone you can involved in this amazing work of kindness. Make this the year you start a beautiful tradition with a meaningful sentiment and know you did something to create moments of joy for those little Angels by receiving your own angels.
Here is how to do it!
Step 1: The following will make Christmas angels for the Christmas tree: Children and teenagers in foster care; clients of Sr. Basilia Center; elders at St. Martin’s Home, children under Social Services; children of inmates, Miss Lalie Center residents.
Step 2: These angels (some 600 of them) will be hung on a Christmas tree at Clem Labega Square in Philipsburg during the weekend.
Step 3: During the weekend of December 16-18, you can visit the Christmas tree from 9:00am to 7:00pm and choose one or more angels. You will be told of the age and gender of the child, teenager or elder who made the angel.
Step 4: Go out and buy a gift for your angel.
Step 5: Return to the Christmas tree with the gift(s) you bought in exchange for the Christmas angel(s).
Step 6: Hang your angel up on your Christmas tree at home as a reminder that you made someone’s Christmas special this year.
Spread the word, tell family and friends, and together you can make Christmas special for everyone on Sint Maarten this year! For information about the foundation and this project, visit www.k1britanniafoundation.org and K1 Britannia Foundation on Facebook.
