"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." - Winston Churchill

Those words capture something we see every holiday season at the Santa Foundation. Giving is not simply about what we provide to someone else. It is about connection, compassion and the knowledge that our actions can make another person's life a little brighter.

The Santa Foundation serves families across 34 communities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island providing personalized holiday gifts, essential items, and assistance to families experiencing financial hardship. Last holiday season, the Foundation provided holiday support to more than 860 families, impacting over 3,500 individuals, with an increase in demand of more than 20% since the previous year. This year, we expect that need to grow once again.

Behind those numbers are real families: parents working hard to make ends meet, grandparents raising grandchildren, single parents stretching every dollar, and families facing unexpected financial challenges. For these families, the holiday season can bring tremendous stress as parents and caregivers wonder how they will provide gifts for their children while still paying for necessities such as food, heat, housing and transportation.

For more than 40 years, the Santa Foundation has worked to help ease that burden and bring joy and hope to families during the holiday season.

Nearly one-third of the families we served last year received their holiday gifts through one of the Foundation's most meaningful programs: Family Sponsorship.

A Santa Foundation Sponsor is an individual, family, business or group that volunteers to provide holiday gifts for a local family in need. Sponsors are matched with a family and receive information about the children, including their ages and holiday wish lists. Then the fun begins - sponsors get to personally select gifts for children and teens, helping parents and caregivers create a joyful holiday experience for their families.

You don't have to take on a large family. The Santa Foundation matches sponsors with families based on the size of family they feel comfortable supporting. Sponsors receive the information they need to shop, along with instructions about when and where gifts should be returned to the Foundation. Every sponsorship makes a difference.

Not able to sponsor an entire family? You can still help. Donations of new toys, games, cozy blankets, gifts for teenagers and gift cards are always needed and help us support families who are not matched with individual sponsors.

The Santa Foundation is an all-volunteer organization built around a simple idea: community helping community. While sponsors and recipients remain anonymous to one another, the families receiving assistance live in the same towns where our sponsors live, work, shop, attend school and raise their own families.

This holiday season, consider gathering your family, friends, coworkers or neighbors and becoming a Santa Foundation Sponsor. The greatest gift may not be what we give, but the hope, joy and connection that giving creates.

To learn more or sign up to become a Family Sponsor, visit www.sfjoy.org/sponsor-a-family.