By Lilah Fitzgerald

Beauty Night is an organization that helps to empower homeless women and youth. Beauty Night started in 2000, and has been running ever since. Two years ago when I first became involved in the Beauty Night stocking stuffing I was nine years old, and I knew nothing about it. As I put the things that I took for granted (dental care, shampoo and conditioner, soap, body wash, etc.) into the stockings, I suddenly started to really think about how hard it must be for those women and youth who would feel like queens if they had the luxuries I had. And so I started to really care about these people that I had never even met, and I was glad that I could do this for them. Sadly, a few weeks later I forgot all about it.

The following year, since my mother was in the city doing Christmas shopping (something else that most people just expect to happen), she was the only one that did the stocking stuffing. But this year my mother asked me if I would like to do the Beauty Night stocking stuffing again, and I said yes. Except this year we also got together with a group of friends (both youth and women) and we sewed and decorated about sixty stockings. It felt so nice to be doing something to help, which is what the holiday season is all about. But I’m not going to lie, when I was first cutting out the stockings it felt sort of like a chore, something I had to do before I could go and play. But then that feeling that I would be giving someone hope came back to me, and as I embroidered christmas trees and sewed buttons onto the stockings, I did it with love.

This year the stocking stuffing had a much deeper meaning, because as I saw the stockings that I had made being filled with gifts, I realized that I was also giving hope, dignity, and beauty. Making and filling these stockings felt like being in a community coming to help these people who might never have had the feeling of people helping them.

The more involved I became, the more I wanted to be involved. So now my family and I are going to find out how we can help year round, and not just once a year. And this blog post is just the beginning.