Bonnie Peter (left) and Teresa Stanton-Law (Right)
Join HOPE in giving Bonnie Peter, our January Volunteer of the Month, a virtual round of applause!
Bonnie has been one of Santa’s best helpers in Eastern North Carolina. She serves as the lead volunteer for Pine Knoll Shores’ angel tree that supports HOPE’s Holiday Giving Initiative. Since 2012, Bonnie has been rallying her community by collecting and wrapping gifts for military families and delivering them by Christmas Eve. This year, the community has provided a very merry and bright Christmas to 14 military families and 117 families since she started.
In 2018, when Hurricane Florence hit just before the holiday season and devastated much of eastern North Carolina, Bonnie and Pine Knoll Shores stepped up in a big way to support military families affected. In addition to their regular Christmas giving, they raised more funds and purchased gift cards along with presents for these families.
HOPE’s Leslie Hunt, who manages the Holiday Giving Initiative shares, “Having been with HOPE since the beginning and living in the Eastern North Carolina community as a military family for many years, the support Bonnie and the Pine Knoll Shores community shows our military families is truly heartwarming and remarkable. It’s always a pleasure working with Bonnie, and I cannot thank her enough for her dedicated work during such a busy time of year.”
Thank you, Bonnie, for your hard work and dedication to this program that keeps the magic of Christmas alive for military children. This small gesture is nothing compared to the notes of appreciation shared by the military families you have helped impact:
“On behalf of the Tejada family, we would like to thank you and the entire staff affiliated with the providing gifts to our family. My kids where super excited and overwhelmed with joy at all the gifts. I am in tears as I type this email because, with all that this world is going through and the “new norm” of our family, this has touched us in a place we could never forget, ever! Please extend our love and appreciation to everyone again. Thank you thank you and God bless you all.”
HOPE’s Holiday Giving Initiative is a national program open to post-9/11 combat wounded or Gold Star military families that are struggling financially during the holidays. This initiative has impacted more than 1,000 military children.