The Spence-Chapin Holiday Angels Program provides clothing, essentials, and gifts to families in need. Not your typical toy drive, Holiday Angels provides the opportunity for donor families to be matched with a recipient family and sent a wish list of necessities and items that family has prioritized. Participants can also choose to make a financial contribution to the program instead of being matched. Whichever option you choose, you will bring joy to families in need this holiday season! The program continues to expand its impact and is now serving families in New York, New Jersey, AND Arizona!Â
Want to start a Holiday Angels Team? A group of colleagues, an entire business or school, a school classroom, or a group of friends, can all be a Holiday Angels Team! Sign your team up here!
To our families who are currently in process to adopt through one of Spence-Chapin’s adoption programs and would like to participate in Holiday Angels, please note that we are able to match you with a family for whom you will purchase gifts for the holiday, but are unable to accept financial contributions until adoptions are fully finalized. If you have any questions, please reach out to our Manager of Events, Toni Schweizer at [email protected]. Thank you!
The Holiday Angels program supports families who are in need of extra assistance during the holiday season. Some of the beneficiary families are former or current clients of Spence-Chapin who may be struggling financially and for whom providing winter essentials and especially holiday gifts for their children may be particularly challenging. We also partner with social service and health organizations throughout New York and New Jersey who operate in communities where Spence-Chapin also has a presence through our satellite offices, to support their clients during the holiday season. These may be families who are currently residing in shelters and are facing housing insecurity, intimate partner violence, and financial hardship. By offering these gifts, we aim to bring joy and relief to as many families as we can during the holiday season.
Holiday Angels is a great opportunity to spread joy as an individual, with your family, in your workplace or with your child’s school! Many of our Holiday Angels who are families enjoy the annual tradition of shopping all together for the items on their beneficiary families’ wish list and having each family member help in selecting items they feel the beneficiary family will appreciate. We also have colleagues who may be in the same department at their place of work, on the same team, or just work friends, who sign up to support one or more families as a group. Entire companies can also sign up and employees can choose to form a group or be matched with a beneficiary family individually. Schools are also welcome to participate, and each classroom can sign up to support one or more beneficiary families and be asked to bring in items based off of the families’ wish lists. However you choose to be a Holiday Angel, your participation will bring joy to those in need during the holiday season!
Holiday Angels fill out our form and select the size and number of families they want to support, and are then sent some information to help them pick out gifts for each child, including their age, size, and interests, like Spiderman or the color pink. There may also be additional items the family has identified as needing urgently, like winter garments, shoes, or crib sheets. Holiday Angels can then choose to go out and shop in stores and drop off the items to Spence-Chapin, shop online and have the items shipped to us, or make a donation for the amount they would like to contribute to the family, and Spence-Chapin can purchase the gifts to be delivered. Whichever path is chosen, Spence-Chapin volunteers will wrap all of the gifts, and staff will deliver them to each family!
Volunteers play a key role in wrapping and delivering gifts to families in need. Last year, with the help of our partner, Goldman Sachs, volunteers wrapped over 700 gifts, ensuring they were ready to be distributed to the community.
Want to learn more about volunteering during Holiday Angels? Email our Events team at [email protected]!
We are proud to be able to partner with such wonderful organizations around New York, New Jersey and Arizona for Holiday Angels and throughout the year to provide comprehensive support services to the women, children, and families who need them. Thank you!
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©2025 SPENCE-CHAPIN SERVICES TO FAMILIES AND CHILDREN A REGISTERED 501(C)(3) NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION WITH EIN 13-1834590
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