2024 Tewa Holiday Project Wrap Up

If you are like me, the first thing that I am interested in is the pictures. To help you out so you do not have to scroll through this posting to find them, here are the links to the 2024 Tewa Holiday Project Coats4Kids delivery and the 2024 Tewa Holiday Project Food Delivery:

2024 Tewa Holiday Project Coats4Kids Delivery

2024 Tewa Holiday Project Food Delivery to the Tewa Community

If there is any doubt in your mind after looking at the pictures, the 2024 Tewa Holiday Project was an outstanding success. With the help of so many of you, we raised over $22,000 in cash donations, the most in the 18-year history of the Tewa Holiday Project. In addition, we delivered over 260 brand new coats to all of the students at First Mesa Elementary, the entire Hopi Head Start Program’s 85 students, 50 students at Second Mesa Day School, and 20 children in foster care at First Mesa. In addition, we delivered over 500 hand-knit hats and scarves, hand-made blankets, and over 125 new wrapped gifts for the Tewa community children.

This is the 18th year of the Tewa Holiday Project. I will take credit for starting and spearheading this adventure, but the true credit belongs to everyone who has donated and volunteered to help make it the success it has been and was again this year. With your generous cash donations and the estimated value of the coats, hats, scarves, blankets, and toys, you donated an estimated $40,000 to the Tewa Community. You should all be very proud of what you accomplished.

I NEED to give a big “THANK YOU” TO MANZANITA OUTREACH. With the record amount of cash donations came the opportunity to provide the 100 Tewa Elders families with a record amount of goods delivered. The food and personal items were sourced from all over Northern Arizona, including Costco in Prescott, Bashas, Safeway in Sedona, Walmarts in Cottonwood and Flagstaff, and Dollar Tree and Sams Club in Flagstaff. It took two large trucks from Manzanita Outreach to make the delivery. 100 of everything: 25-pound bags of pinto beans (that is 1.25 tons, by the way), 20-pound bags of Blue Bird flour, turkeys, hominy, oatmeal, sugar, cereal, pancake mix, potatoes, carrots, oranges, apples, apple juice, peanut butter, canned peaches, corn and beans, blankets, cooking oil, shampoo, hand sanitizer, hand lotion, and many, many more items.

There are so many folks who need to be recognized for their extra contributions to the success of this year’s Tewa Holiday Project. I cannot say enough about Lindsay Wellman and the students at Verde Valley School, who once again accomplished the seemingly impossible task of delivering 260 new coats to students on the Hopi reservation. Lindsay took over from Caroline Diehl this year to ramrod the Coats4Kids program. With Lindsay at the helm, we delivered 105 coats to First Mesa Elementary, 85 to the entire Hopi Head Start Program, 50 to Second Mesa Day School, and 20 children in Forster care. You cannot imagine the logistical challenge of receiving all those coats and getting them to the right child. From the perspective of an outside observer, it is bringing order to chaos.

There are so many folks that I need to thank. Dale and Rosemary Stellick and Sedona Eye Care for the Toys4Tewa trees, over 125 gifts were gathered. Amazing!

Mike Wise, Paul Favorite, Joel Bowers, and Guy Fridge for helping get all the food and personal items from Bashas and Safeway to Manzanita Outreach. 

The volunteers that helped pack and make the delivery at the village of Tewa: Meg Beauchamp, Mary Smoak, Sandy Immerso, Peter Periharos, Cathy and Scott Parker, Jeff and Theresa Felzenberg, Ron Fischer, MK Bernardo, Dave and Suzette Young, Brandon Brashears, Ellen Ferreira, Chuck Budden, Diane Phelps, Rich and Ann Boyer, Pat Blum, Celeste Rubanick, Delta Dental, Kendra and Jeremy ivy and apologies to anyone my aging brain is not recalling.

The Village of Tewa volunteers, Tewa Elders, and the Village of Tewa Board of Directors that were on hand for the delivery.

And not to go without a special shout out to the Tewa ladies, who provided us with the best Indian Tacos I have ever had. They provided us with a master class in fry bread. Thank you, ladies.

Last, a special shout-out to my wife, Milton, who is always by my side and my biggest supporter. And Jeremy Ivy, my friend with a heart as big as all outdoors, who is constantly in the giving mode.

Respectfully and with gratitude,

Randy