Sadie Hanson's Gifts of Goodness Program

Posted by Steve Frazier

Sadie Hanson is a junior at Minnetonka High School and the founder of "Gifts for Goodness" program. This year the Excelsior Rotary Club raised $513.00 for the Christmas distribution program. Pictured here is a beaming Sadie Hanson with Rotary President Karen Frazier as she received the check from the Excelsior Rotary Club.

Sadie and her crew stuffed 11 items into 400 bags for homeless men and teen aged boys all with "You are Loved" tags in them. Also contributing to the cause was Mt. Calvary, Hats & Mittens and Dr. Jon and Ann Hanson. The homeless lined-up on Christmas Eve at Marie Sandvic Center to receive their gift bag, which in most cases was the only gift they received this Christmas. The Gift of Goodness bags contained wool socks, hats, work gloves, toothbrushes and toothpaste, razors, hand-warmers, playing cards, deodorant, water and oatmeal cookies.

As you may recall from when Sadie spoke to us on October 7^th she told us that when she was in 8th grade she went on a field trip to a shelters in downtown Minneapolis. She noticed that while the kids and women received gifts of winter clothing, gloves and such, the teenage boys and adult men didn't get any. She was so moved by the experience that she went to all 8th grade classes at Minnetonka East and raised $1,000 to use to purchase gloves and caps for the homeless men in the shelters. In 9th grade at MHS with the help of the Student Council she raised $3,000. Last year she was able to switch to wool caps instead of cotton ones, and this year she is working with student government and local organizations to raise awareness of the problem. Over the past three years she has raised over $10,000 for Gifts for Goodness.