A little yellow book

If you’ve ever wondered ‘is being celebrated on your birthday really THAT important?’ or ‘these kids have so much going on in their lives that surely a box of things for their birthday can’t have much of an impact’, this post is for you. 

It truly is a gift to receive feedback about our birthday boxes. We often never hear of the box once they are delivered. This happens for many reasons including social workers being overworked and simply not having the time to pass on a special story or young people not having access to thank you cards and stamps. We never make birthday boxes for the purpose of receiving a thank you but when we do it’s incredibly special.  

Read these words graciously provided to us about a young man who was celebrated on his February birthday because of one of our incredible sponsors: 

  “Wanted to share about my recent Worthday box experience.

 I have a young man that turned 18 last Sunday.  This young man presents as angry and annoyed and frustrated most of the time.  Not very trusting of anyone. His placement had disrupted when I had completed the Worthday referral, so I wasn’t quite sure where he was going to be.  He is a football player and loves Dallas Cowboys.  The box was over flowing with Cowboys paraphernalia, which I knew he would enjoy.  What surprise me were the items that meant the most to him.

There was a small yellow book of quotes.  Quite frankly I could not even tell you if this young man even reads because I have never send him with any book not even a school book.  So I assumed that the book would remain in the tub, never to be seen again.  Well a week after he received his box we had a school meeting.  To the meeting he brings a book bag that appears mostly empty(defiantly no school books in the bag)  We have the very difficult school meeting. Afterward we sat in the car, talked about life and his upcoming birthday.  We start talking about the Worthday box.  He stated that there was some really nice things in the box.  I asked him when he was going to made the cake.  He stated that he hasn’t had a cake since he was a little boy.  So I encouraged him to make the cake with the new foster family, that’s what it is for.  He smiled and agreed and said he would make the cake.  He talked about how the bin has EVERYTHING needed to make the cake.  But what surprised me was he reaches into his book bag and pulls out the yellow book of quotes.  He then tells me that he has been reading the book every day.  That he really enjoys the quotes in the book. We shared some quotes together before I left.

He also loved the sign with his name on it.

Thanks for what you do.  This experience with him will be one that I will always remember and cherish.”

So if you’ve ever wondered the impact, wonder no more. These birthday celebrations sometimes go far beyond impacting the birthday recipient. This one impacted this sweet boy but also his social worker! 

We are forever grateful to have a community that believes in the power of joy! 

- Caroline Neal,

Founder of Worthdays