Grateful Harvest: A Thanksgiving Celebration

HALO is grateful to have the opportunity to host events like HALO Thanksgiving for our kids.

We feel privileged to celebrate Thanksgiving with our kids every year. Our children enjoy delicious food, fun activities, and many festivities throughout the evening. Our volunteers generously provide and serve delicious meals, and HALO kids can take leftovers home to enjoy. Together, we can ensure that our HALO kids are given a holiday season they won't forget. HALO is their home for the holidays, which means we celebrate around the table with turkey, ham, and homemade pies. We share traditions that we grew up with so they can choose what traditions they would like to begin with their own family one day. Each year at all our HALO locations, we are truly amazed at the generosity of volunteers who agree that every kid should get the chance to have a Thanksgiving they can look forward to. This Thanksgiving, they are the ones we are thankful for.

At HALO, we love to see how creative our kids are. We set up a special activity called the "Thankful Tree" in Kansas City for the holidays. The kids wrote down what they were thankful for this holiday season and made beautiful art. Some of the things they were grateful for were their family, food, and gymnastics.

After dinner, the kids played games, worked on art projects, participated in a Turkey Race, and had a dance-off!

Thanks to the support and dedication of HALO's volunteers and supporters, we can bring the foundation of a family to HALO youth during the holiday season. Please join us in celebrating our November volunteers of the month that helped make HALO Thanksgiving possible.

Kansas City Volunteers of the Month: Bob Daum, Katie Ketel, Olivia Pikul, Trevor Gorges, Todd Lowenstein, Valerie Morrill, Thuy U, Leslie de Santiago, Eshi Wickramasundara, Advocate Board Members, Courtney Filing, Lori Lewellen, Holly Mihalovich, Jen Call and their kids, along with other Advocate Board members kids.

In Jefferson City we were truly in awe of the generosity of volunteers who cooked incredible food for our HALO kids. We had the most delicious meal, every bit of which was donated by HALO supporters. Our kids were able to eat their fill and take to-go containers home to enjoy leftovers with their family.

It is always so special to gather around the table with HALO youth and alumni and enjoy just being together.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with new HALO faces, and even helped a few HALO babies enjoy their first feast as best we know how, with lots and lots of tasty treats!

After dinner, we colored, played games, spoke about what we were thankful for, and of course had some friendly games of basketball.

Special thanks to every single person who made and delivered food, or took the time to serve our HALO youth. You made this a very special Thanksgiving for our kids. We hope they always know they have a community of love supporting them, and believing they deserve beautiful moments, and the foundation of a family.

Jefferson City Volunteers of the Month: Rich Borth, Morgan Zimmer, Peggy Ortiz-Russel, Kyle Ortiz, Suzanne Alewine, Sara Parker, Philip Keller, Christel Daniels, Jason Daniels, Debra Madison, Brittany Allen, Betty Sundermeyer, Mel-B Baitinger, Dian Schreimann, Jamie McGlade, Stacey Pond, Donell Burns, Justin Somers, and Solid Rock Church.

Help HALO This Holiday Season