We provide warm socks and gloves to those in the most need, the homeless.

Warm Hands & Toasty Tootsies gifts are individually wrapped with a candy cane (a little sweet for the child in each of us) slipped into each glove, scarf or winter cap, and a note of encouragement to the recipient is enclosed. In addition, I give a card to a friend or loved one whom I exchange gifts with, explaining that a gift of Warm Hands & Toasty Tootsies was given in their name to someone in need.

And then what happens?

Well... they have to be given!

We identify outlets (warming shelters, battered women/children homes, overnight shelters) to distribute these gifts with the only two caveats being that they are to be given ONLY to the homeless and they are to be given at Christmas... not stored away for distribution year-round. While we understand giving to the needy... Warm Hands & Toasty Tootsies's focus is the homeless. There are two outlets that we give to annually, others are identified each year.

Ah... an easy task you say? I was told that I had the best job of all... delivery!

My answer was, "Really? Why don't you come with... as it is so easy." The man who told me this did... and walking out of the first warming shelter with tears in his eyes, he admitted he had been wrong... it was probably the hardest job of all... seeing.

We are blessed with a very special group of individuals who take on the hardest job of all... and they do it in person. These elves go out on the streets of Chicago and hand out gifts on lower Wacker Drive downtown where the homeless take shelter out of the wind (if not out of the cold) and on the west side of Chicago and other neighborhoods where the homeless abound. These elves are my heroes. I couldn't do their job. (Imagine me sniffling at this point and I am not ashamed to admit it, either.)