The Mom Shop

From an unassuming office...

... to a shop full  of holiday excitement.

Call it pandemonium. Call it excitement. Call it Christmas.

            Whatever you call it, The Mom Shop at Glynn Community Crisis Center (beneficiary of the funds raised by A Taste of Glynn) turned a perfectly dignified professional office space into holiday central again this year. For months, Adult Advocate Carmen Knox and Children’s Advocate Paula VanOtteren have been gathering gifts for mothers and their children at the Crisis Center’s Amity House, the domestic violence shelter, and Hope House, the transitional living residence for those who are in the process of remaking their lives. The big party on December 12 was the culmination of hours of devotion and love.

            The shelter is full right now. Along with families, Amity House has a number of single women in residence. It’s an especially tough time of year to be away from home, starting over. Even tougher if there are children involved. Victims can arrive at the shelter with only the clothes on their backs. It’s a long way back to the financial stability and security that allows parents to afford gifts for their children.

            This year, the children range in age from 4 to 16. Escorted by a Crisis Center staff member or community volunteer, each family group comes to the Mom Shop sans parent and fills a shopping bag with gifts they select for their mother themselves. The children select one item from each category of gifts; purses, bath products, jewelry, robes and decorative items like small picture frames. The selection is impressive, but the source of this bounty is even more so.

            “We have a very generous community,” noted Carmen Knox. “Gifts come to us for The Mom Shop from area retail stores, from churches and from individuals. These are beautiful things that the children are proud to give as gifts to their parents.

            The Mom Shop offers children at the Crisis Center an opportunity to experience the joy of giving. “Selecting the gifts themselves makes the children so proud,” Paula VanOtteren pointed out. “They love to tell their mothers, ‘I picked this out just for you.’ Our goal is to let the children feel as if they are really shopping for Christmas.”

            The generosity doesn’t stop there. “If we have a family with several children, we give the oldest child a chance to pick out some things for their mother, but also to shop for one of the single ladies in the shelter who might not have a child to shop for her,” Paula explained. “This way, each person has special gifts that someone selected with her in mind. Nobody is left out.”

            It’s a proud, joyous, exciting day. Santa arrives to surprise the children with a gift just from him. Each family has a portrait photograph taken by Paula’s husband, Eliot VanOtteren, the corporate photographer for Sea Island. Special goodies abound. It’s the type of holiday magic that these children might never have experienced previously in their lives.

            Carmen Knox stands by, taking it all in, snapping pictures to remind everyone of the wonderful day. She has worked on this day for months each of the five years she has been on staff with the Crisis Center. The end result is always worth it. “We just have to give huge props to our community,” she repeats. “We could never have done this without them.”