When fresh from prison, Sarah Montoya-Lewis attended church with her school-age daughter on the day of an Angel Tree backpack giveaway. She asked for a backpack for her daughter, and though none remained, Sarah left with much more—an instant friend in Angel Tree coordinator Barb Steward.
“She’s like my adopted daughter,” Barb says of Sarah. Mutual devotion to prison ministry has cemented their friendship. Barb has coordinated Angel Tree efforts at Shiloh Christian Ministries Church in Sierra Vista, Arizona, since 2000, and Sarah has founded her own prison ministry called PRAISE.
As part of PRAISE, Sarah started a clothing closet. With more donations than she could distribute, she approached Barb and asked, “Why don’t we do something for the Angel Tree families?”
They started a back-to-school clothing giveaway for Angel Tree families, an annual event so successful that, in 2010, the City of Sierra Vista asked them to become part of the city’s back-to-school fair serving low-income families.
The clothing giveaway took massive preparations. Barb sorted two storage rooms full of clothing, and a team of 25 volunteers—including Sarah’s daughter—spent the next couple of weeks arranging four truckloads of clothing in a storefront donated by the local mall.
It was worth it. On the day of the back-to-school fair, the Angel Tree clothing giveaway served 700 people. “Whole families came. Everyone from newborn babies to older people,” Sarah beams.
The City has already asked Sarah and Barb to return, and the duo has recommenced clothing collections. Some donations come from churches and consignment stores, and some arrive anonymously in bags—to Barb’s front porch.
Oh, where did this come from? she asks herself with each discovery. “You never know,” she adds. “but I know what to do with it!”