INSPIRING: Secret Santa 365 days a year - gifts are given every day of the year!
A young girl is inspired to continue her grandmother's legacy and create Christmas cheer 365 days a year...
Courtney Hughes shares her story with the world as she recently won the Care Hero award and took the overall award winner for the Outstanding Achievement Award. Oh, how proud her grandmother must be...
Courtney was very close to her grandmother, who she called 'nan'. She spent a lot of time with her as a child and looked up to her and all that she did. When her gran fell ill and went to the hospital when Courtney was just 13, she wanted to bring the spirit of Christmas to her gran and also to the other patients who were spending Christmas alone.
Courtney and her family brought in decorations and gifts for everyone in the hospital and created a Christmas worth remembering. A few months later, Courtney lost her grandmother. Instead of letting her nan's death paralyse her, she used it as a driving force to continue her grandmother's legacy - the legacy of giving.
She decided to gather donations and with the help of her family and her school, she managed to collect 250 presents and gave these to the elderly home and the hospital. Her aim was to raise people's spirits and be like her nan and spread some happiness, Metro reports.
She found that these gestures of giving gifts were really appreciated and adopted the slogan, 'The Gift of Giving' for her charity work. Ten years later, she has managed to give away over 80,000 gifts and has a year-round initiative called 'Secret Santa 365'.
Courtney quickly realised that many people, not just the elderly, face struggles of feeling alone, and she started focusing her efforts towards giving every day of the year. What a wonderful sentiment!
From hosting tea parties to craft time parties, she tries to cater to all sorts of events that allow people to feel special. She is currently working on getting her Nursing Associates Degree, so each time she is not working, she is working on Secret Santa 365.
Courtney even went as far as thinking about families who did not have any laptops during the pandemic and got donated laptops for families so that they could keep in touch with family and friends.
All her amazing efforts even got her a personal invitation to Prince Harry and Megan Markle's wedding. She said that her gran was a real royalist and would have been so proud and excited to have been there.
Image Courtesy of Facebook