Sometimes, a local need and a local resource come together at just the right time, and at that moment the world seems just a bit brighter.

Many residents of Lincoln County are familiar with the pink and blue tags of the Family Holiday Wishes program. Each December, these tags appear in shops, restaurants, businesses and churches all over town. Through the Holiday Wishes program, the community provides gifts for local families with kids: families that are facing tough choices between Christmas shopping and grocery shopping. Many generous folks in our community find great satisfaction in fulfilling some of those Holiday Wishes as a part of their own family traditions.

One of the recurring themes on the children’s wish lists is sports equipment: sleds, footballs and basketballs, baseball gloves and bats, soccer balls, winter outdoor toys and summer yard games, snowshoes, field hockey sticks, bike helmets, scooters, fishing rods… the list goes on. In total, according to Holiday Wishes organizer Cynthia Finnemore Simonds, “the sports equipment to respond to all the Holiday Wishes in our community would fill a large room!”

Again this year, Karl’s Kids has responded to this need by providing a grant to Holiday Wishes to purchase sports equipment for Lincoln County youth. The $2000 grant will be used to acquire sports equipment for individual Wishes that are not fulfilled through the pink and blue tags, and thus will respond to the eager dreams of many young people in our community. In the process, this grant will encourage and support kids to be engaged in healthy and constructive physical activities, including interacting with other kids in the neighborhood and on athletic teams.