‘Unreal’: Nearly 1,000 Michigan Families to Receive Christmas Gifts from Project Feed the Kids

Nearly 1,000 Michigan families in need will receive some Christmas joy in the form of free presents to relieve the stress on struggling parents.

With some parents stretching to make ends meet just a few days before Christmas, Project Feed the Kids has stepped up to provide help.

“There’s something about growing up and being poor and needing help, and then being able to give back now and it being full circle,” Tiffany McQueer, president of the nonprofit, told WYMT. “I mean it. Really, I just love it. That’s why I do it.”

The project involves a lot of hard work and volunteers to pull through for local families.

“We have less than 100 hours to make this happen, so it’s been jam-packed,” said McQueer. “I left here last night at 2:00 a.m., got back here at seven, ready to do it again all day today.”

The charity workers are putting in long hours through the days and nights as an “ever-growing” list of families expands.

“We are fulfilling probably about a hundred families in the next, you know, less than a hundred hours, so we’re at about 940,” the president said. “I think we’re going to hit about 960.”

McQueer and her “helper elves” will ensure that those families will have presents for their kids in 2023.

She said that the need has grown every year, with 2023 seeing a massive increase in families requesting help during record inflation levels.

“There’s just so much. There’s people out of jobs. We have homeless families where people [are] living in campers, single dads, single moms, domestic violence survivors. We are all over the board.”

Even though it is a lot of hard work, McQueer said, “It’s just what it is.”

“Our family knows that this is what it is, and together, as a team, we make it happen for all these families because we love to do it,” she explained. “It’s important to us. Makes us feel good, makes our heart happy.”

The volunteers will continue to gather and deliver presents through Christmas Eve.

“Last year, we were able to fulfill a family at 10:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve because they had a house fire, so we took care of everything they needed,” McQueer recalled.

Come Christmas morning, McQueer and her family will be on the receiving end of some joy.

“It’s amazing. It is unreal. We get videos. We get pictures. It just makes every hour, every second we put into it 100 percent worth it. A hundred percent,” McQueer said. “It’s just to make it happen for these guys. It means the world to us, for sure.”