Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
SOUTH SALT LAKE — Christmas in July may mean looking ahead to the holidays or celebrating something special in the summer. But, for one Utah non-profit, Christmas in July is a call for help.
At The Christmas Box House, Christmas in July is a campaign for donations, which are lagging behind this year.
The non-profit is currently short more than $55,000 in funds used to help kids get through the summer. For some kids, the work the organization provides may mean the difference between life and death.
Preparing for children to arrive at The Christmas Box House is something Maygan Martinez knows in more ways than one. Before she worked there at the shelter, which helps children placed into state custody, she lived there as a teenager.
"My adoptive parents decided to put me back into state's custody at the age of 16," Martinez said. "So, parents that I thought had chosen me to love me for the rest of my life, just decided that they didn't want to anymore."
Martinez said her painful childhood took on new meaning at The Christmas Box House.
Despite living there for only a few months, she said the life lessons she learned and the loving staff who greeted her helped her survive when she became homeless and lived out of her car roughly two years later.
"I don't think if I had a safe place to land in that insane part of my life, there's no way I could be sitting here with you today," Martinez said.
It's that type of life-changing work The Christmas Box House hopes to continue. Providing children shelter, safety and their daily essentials.
But this year, the organization has experienced a large decrease in donations, leaving some kids in need.
"So, these donations give them everything they need when they come in, but also gives them everything they need when they go to their next placement," Celeste Edmunds, the executive director of The Christmas Box International, said.
Some kids arrive at the non-profit with nothing, so it provides things like toys, books, and hygiene kits.
If The Christmas Box House doesn't receive more donations to cover those essentials, the organization said it will be at risk of figuring out other ways to find money to keep those essentials coming.
"We won't allow the essential items to not happen. We'll pull from places that we have to, but it's a significant hit on the nonprofit to have to figure out how to compensate for that," Edmunds said.
Martinez knows this need.
That's why after she stayed there as a child, she came back to work there before starting a non-profit of her own, called the 1999 Collective, to help other teens like her.
"We started to help those who are aging out or who are already aged out of foster care, to make sure they're getting the resources they need," Martinez said.
She said getting help herself at The Christmas Box House was a critical start. One she hopes doesn't stop, but believes can't continue the same way unless people donate.
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