Costa Mesa, CA – This holiday season marked the 49th year of Share Our Selves’ Annual Adopt A Family Program. This wonderful holiday tradition supports many struggling Orange County families by providing gifts and food for the holidays. In 2018, the Adopt A Family Program connected donors with 1,451 families with children recommended by Costa Mesa and Santa Ana organizations and schools.

Hundreds of families and organizations made Adopt A Family a part of their holiday tradition in 2018. Participating donors provided each child in the family with at least two new gifts and a complete holiday dinner. In addition to our donors, various companies, schools and religious organizations held food and toy drives, which assisted SOS in providing a memorable holiday for every family.

This year SOS was able to deliver Christmas gifts and a hearty meal to 1,451 families with over 4,527 children from 62 local schools and organizations. SOS would like to extend a big thank you to our amazing volunteers who put in countless hours of time over many months. We sincerely appreciate the generosity of the many families, companies and organizations that adopted families and held food and toy drives, as well as the numerous volunteer and staff members who worked tirelessly at the OC Fair & Event Center packing and sorting boxes of gifts and food. It is because of the support of the community that SOS was able to make this a Merry Christmas for families that desperately needed a little holiday cheer.

SOS also collected messages of thanks from the families who directly benefited from this program. Please take a look at their heartfelt words in the slideshow below.