Salvos put cheer back into family’s Christmas
I had forgotten all about Christmas. I’d forgotten that I had a daughter who still believed in Santa.
– Sandra*, Salvation Army client.
After her son’s suicide in May 2010, Sandra says she was on autopilot. “I just wanted to die at the time,” she says. “It was horrible!”
Spiralling into depression and struggling financially, she could just not muster the strength that year to organise Christmas. Her eight-year-old daughter only received one very small toy. However, Sandra explains how her local Salvation Army surprised them with “beautiful” gifts.
“I had forgotten all about Christmas,” she says. “I know that sounds selfish, but my mind was – I can’t explain how my mind was - it was like I was in ‘the twilight zone’. And they [The Salvation Army] came up with a bag full of toys that had been donated. It just lifted my spirits to think of how many beautiful people there are in this world and how caring and how thoughtful.
“My daughter had a lovely Christmas, because of the Salvos! If they weren’t there, my little girl … I don’t know what would have happened. I just wasn’t doing Christmas; I just didn’t want to know about it at the time. I just disappeared.”
More than six years earlier, Sandra had first gone to The Salvation Army for help after her husband had a serious work accident. He still requires almost full-time care, while there are numerous medical and other bills for the family. Her husband’s conditions means he can’t be left alone, so Sandra is unable to work.
Before the accident, Sandra says they were a normal family.
“We were fine, not rich or anything - you still struggle when all the bills come in at the end of the month, but you get past that ... you put a little bit away and it’s all good.
“But it got to the point where we were hungry. We were feeding the kids and not ourselves. That’s how bad it was.”
Sandra is aware that many others are in the same boat, struggling to make ends meet, and in many ways she sees herself as rich because she has the basics. The team from her local Salvation Army have been her “backbone”. They’ve reached out again and again with love and care.
Sandra is a very independent woman who only asks for help as a last resort. But if not for support of the Army, Sandra can’t imagine where her family would now be.
“That’s really frightening,” she says. “I would probably be out on the street ... that is the honest to God truth. There’s no way I would have been able to pay the rent without having them [The Salvation Army] to help me with electricity and food.
“Thank God for the Salvos – I mean it! “
*Sandra not real name
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