Setting The Table For Patients’ In-Need This Holiday

Annually, Foundation staff, board members and others provide support to the CHRISTUS St. Mary’s Clinic Thanksgiving Basket Drive. What a difference the baskets are making for a family this holiday season. And for many, it was not “extra” holiday food – it was daily food for the table.

St. Mary’s Clinic was able to give food baskets to 75 patient families. Each basket contained a $100 gift card for food, a bag of oranges and a bag of apples in a festive reusable bag. HEB generously donated the fruit and the bags, which allowed us to serve more families with gift baskets.

These are the portraits of the families we were able to serve this year:

• Elderly men and women, living alone, who rely mostly on the generosity of others but have no regular income and struggle to buy food, pay for daily necessities, and more.
• Grandparents raising grandchildren with no additional financial assistance.
• Single parent families (mostly women) who work for minimum wages and have to pay rent, utilities and food besides provide for their children’s needs with this meager income.
• Families who have lost a wage earner, for a variety of reasons, and now are struggling to pay for the basic necessities.
• Families/men/women who through no fault of their own, do not earn enough to cover their basic living expenses.

This is an all-time record for donations and baskets given.  And I am so grateful to have partners in ministry who share their gifts so that others might have the bare necessities of life.

Wishing you and yours a healthy and happy Thanksgiving.

Sr. Rosanne Popp, M.D.
Medical Director
CHRISTUS St. Mary’s Clinic