HELP US ADOPT 1,700 ANGELS! O’FALLON MAN PAYS $8,000 FOR 75 KIDS’ CHRISTMAS TOYS
Now that’s generosity! One local resident, Jonathan Marshall, used more than $8,000 of his own money to finance a Merry Christmas for 75 St. Charles County-area kids.
“I was one of those kids at one time,” Marshall said. “I was in a foster home from the time I was 14 to 18. When I don’t have any children of my own, I’m getting ready to be 41 in January, I figured, ‘Why not?’”
The Salvation Army is looking to fulfill Christmas wish lists for 1,700 angels for its Angel Tree program. If you are interested in adopting an angel this Christmas season, there is still time. Please visit salarmymidland.org, where you will be able to register on the homepage.
Marshall was at an O’Fallon Walmart, when he saw The Salvation Army’s Christmas tree full of angels waiting to be adopted. He had received help from The Salvation Army as a child.
After a call with his wife, Marshall bought the whole tree of tags.
“If there was a bike listed on a tag, Jonathan bought the bikes and helmets to go with it,” said Capt. Colleen Corliss, of The Salvation Army’s O’Fallon corps. “He was moved to tears by the amount of need he saw expressed on that tree, holding all those tags.”
Throwing in a few dollars at the red kettles or helping people carry their groceries is a staple of life for Marshall, he said, though this act was a larger one. He urged this $8,000 was not crowdfunded or compiled money.
Marshall’s high school-age years in group housing for children created formative memories for his outlook on charity and holidays.
“Probably what hit me the most is from when I was 14 to 16, I was in Boys Town down in St. James,” Marshall said. “I remember one Thanksgiving, we went to eat with the soldiers who couldn’t go home, down in Ft. Leonard Wood. That same Christmas, the soldiers from Ft. Leonard Wood used their own money to go to the commissary and bought kids presents.”
Said Capt. Corliss, “As the gifts filled up the truck used to bring them to the distribution site, as bike after bike was put away to be able to give away, the reality of what God does when we ask in faith was overwhelming.”
