By Rayetta Sanchez | Arizona Department of Child Safety
OPINION — Every holiday season, Arizona Department of Child Safety team members dedicate their time to helping thousands of foster children by providing personalized gifts over the holidays.
Have you ever thought about helping children in our far-reaching and diverse community that need it most during the holidays, but you don’t know how?
This time of year, most of us look forward to familiar traditions — gathering with family, exchanging gifts and feeling the warmth of belonging. But for many children, teens and young adults in foster care, the holidays can feel lonely and uncertain.
Each year, AZDCS launches its Giving Tree program, working with community partners across the state to fulfill gift wishes for roughly 6,000 youth. Children in foster care and young adults transitioning out of foster care each submit their holiday wish list. Those wishes — simple, heartfelt and deeply personal — are printed on paper hearts. Community organizations then select those hearts and begin shopping and preparing gifts for local youth they will likely never meet.
These community members play the role of Santa in the purest sense of the word.
They give and offer hope without ever seeing the faces of the children who they help. And in doing so, they remind Arizona’s foster youth that they are seen, valued and worthy of celebration.
The truth is, there is always a need for community partners, especially those willing to take on wish lists for teens and young adults who soon may enter the world alone. While younger children often receive the most attention during the holidays, older youth are sometimes overlooked. Giving Tree offers the opportunity for the community to support foster children of all ages.
Teens in foster care are uniquely aware of their circumstances. Many have spent years — sometimes their entire lives — moving between homes or navigating uncertainty. Often, they ask for things that most of us consider everyday items: a new pair of shoes, a warm hoodie, hygiene essentials, a gift card or a comforter to cover their bed as they move out on their own.
Because they are so aware of what this support represents, their gratitude runs deep. Ask any case manager who has delivered gifts to an older youth — the quiet smile, the look of surprise, the lingering sense of disbelief that someone out there cared enough to think of them. These moments don’t just make a holiday brighter; they restore something far more important: a sense of belonging.
That is the power of Giving Tree.
To keep this program strong — and to ensure that every one of the over 6,000 children’s wishes are selected — AZDCS needs community organizations, faith-based groups, businesses, schools and teams to join us.
You don’t have to wear a big red suit. You don’t need a sleigh or a sack of toys to make an impact on a child’s life during the holidays. What matters is this: when you see a need, you step in to help a child who needs you.
By adopting even a handful of hearts, organizations become part of a statewide network of generosity — one that ensures that no child in foster care feels forgotten during the holidays. You become the reason that a child believes that good things can still happen. You become the reminder that someone cares, that they are loved.
Last year throughout Arizona, 123 community partners provided over $600,000 in gifts for approximately 6,000 children in foster care through the Giving Tree Program.
I hope you’ll consider becoming one of our “Santa’s helpers,” offering a moment of magic to a young person who needs it most. Together, we can ensure every child in foster care — from toddlers to teens to young adults — experiences the joy and hope that define this time of year.
Each gift represents more than just a present — it’s a message of hope, love, and reassurance to a child or young adult who may be feeling forgotten during the holidays.
And that is one of the best gifts we can give.
Rayetta Sanchez is Arizona Department of Child Safety community liaison. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
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