At Thanksgiving, Heartfelt and our volunteers provided huge food baskets and turkey gift certificates to more than 300 families from St. Joseph’s Center in Venice, CA, at an outdoor celebratory event.

This is a letter from a Heartfelt volunteer to Patti Rayner, the Executive Director of the Heartfelt Foundation, regarding her experience of serving those in need at Thanksgiving, with Heartfelt.

Dearest Patti,

I barely know where to begin in expressing the richness, the joy, the preciousness and then my personal gratitude for the privilege to participate in the Heartfelt Thanksgiving Service Project.

I have continued to talk about this event. I am so grateful that you found a place for me where I could interact with so many volunteers. Many of them told me how genuinely thankful and grateful they were to be there. Each was impressed at how wonderfully the event worked and how well it was set up to interact with the families to make for a special day for them, and a special event for the community. The volunteers also said they were touched at the joy they received back as each family who received a basket was so thankful to them for the giving.

Everyone volunteering was generous in their contribution of loving and joyful service all day long – and was eager and willing to do anything that was asked of them. I can see each of the faces glowing with smiles and bright eyes.

I also want to tell you about 3 guys who volunteered who all mentioned they found out about the event from your website. Each of them shared a similar story with me. They said they had “never done anything like this before”, never volunteered for a service project, much less investigated where to find one going on. They had a moment of wanting to do something to contribute for Thanksgiving, so they went online to a community service site and typed in their zip code where they found the Heartfelt project listed. They signed up and showed up Saturday and I have to say they really contributed.

During the day, and again as they were leaving, they told me they had received a lot of satisfaction and fulfillment in being there with Heartfelt, and they noticed their own depth of gratitude for what they have in their lives during this day of giving to those less fortunate. It seemed they looked at their community with “new eyes”.

Thank you, Patti. I am so grateful for Heartfelt. Being a part in any way is an extraordinary blessing to me. I loved the day and all it brought to me.

Patty Elvey