Dear OB-GYN department, donors and our community,We greatly thank you for your loving kindness and generosity that helped to make the holiday season one of happiness and gratitude for our families who receive services from UNC Horizons.
This year, 66 women in treatment with us had gifts to give to their children, thanks to the enormous generosity of our department and others in the community.
Each woman was able to select about 10 gifts and 12 stocking stuffers. During the “shopping” event, many women expressed tears, gratitude and overwhelming thanks for the chance, some for the first time, to select gifts for their children. To know that so many in our community value them was a priceless gift of the season. Your help gave women and children a chance to feel the love of community, feel valued and hold hope for a successful and healthy 2019.
With our OB-GYN clinic now embedded in our outpatient substance use disorder treatment services, we were able to include these women in the gift selection event. For most of those women (all of whom are currently pregnant), the gift event was a surprise, and they were told at the end of their appointments that they were welcome to go downstairs to select some gifts. Many of the women were just overwhelmed when we told them that they could select any 10 bigger items, plus stocking stuffers.
Some of the women are not involved in any other substance use disorder treatment services outside of attending their prenatal visits with us – and so they do not have other sources of support. Many are also driving here from rural communities that do not have many resources or services. Several of them said things to our team like “You have no idea what this means. Now I will have gifts to give my children – I did not have anything for them until now.” Another woman turned to us with tears in her eyes and said, “I’m sorry, I am just not used to people being this nice to me.”
Thank you so much for everything that you did to help support our women and children and to create such a healing community.
Warmly,
Hendrée Jones, Ph.D.
Executive Director, UNC Horizons Program
Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology