Mountain Brook volunteers seek to fill Christmas stockings for cancer patients
Local volunteers — aided by the Mountain Brook fire and police departments — are seeking to brighten the holiday season for adult patients at the Bruno Cancer Center by filling 200 Christmas stockings.
Community members can help by donating needed items such as lip balm, hand sanitizer, Kleenex packs, puzzle books, socks or knit caps, notepads and pens, peppermints, Goldfish crackers and ginger lozenges.
They can drop off their donations at a drive-up tent at the Mountain Brook Police Department at 101 Tibbett St. in Crestline Village Dec. 1, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., according to organizer Stephanie Maxwell.
The stockings are a nice gesture toward an often-overlooked group of people, according to Maxwell, who is also executive director of the Mountain Brook City Schools Foundation.
“Adult patients don’t always get the attention that pediatric patients get at Christmastime,” she said. “It’s a neat little surprise for them.”
Recipients are really touched, Maxwell said.
“They are often there by themselves or with one person, and they are certainly not expecting to have someone walk in with a stocking,” she said.
The effort began locally by Maxwell and her friend Kristin Rentz in 2014. They were inspired by a similar initiative by Team Music Is Love, country singer Martina McBride’s service organization.
With just a few other volunteers, they donated 50 stockings the first year and 100 stockings in 2015, according to Maxwell.
They should have 20 or 30 people helping this year, thanks to Police Chief Ted Cook.
“He was instrumental in helping us get the partnership with (the police) and the fire department,” Maxwell said.
Police volunteers will help stuff the stockings, and some of them will help deliver the stockings to the cancer center Dec. 15.
“Everyone has been touched by cancer,” Cook said. “We all recognize that need.”
For more information, call Maxwell at 414-0042 or look for the “Team Music Is Love Stocking Project 2016” page on Facebook.