Holiday Gift Bags

Each year, we prepare 100 small gift bags for the adult residents of Shalom House, Evergreen House and Interfaith Shelter for Homeless Families.

The contents of the gift bags vary and depend 100% on contributions. The bags typically include toiletries, small jewelry and other personal items.

Individuals or groups, including church groups, scout groups, fraternal organizations or businesses are welcome to help with this program. Simply contact us at the email or telephone below to find out more.

Annual Holiday Party

For over 20 years, we have run a holiday party at Interfaith Shelter for Homeless Families in Harrisburg, PA.

Individuals and families donate gifts to each child and Santa visits and distributes the gifts. In a typical year, we will provide for 25 to 30 children. We ask that you spend about $20 or so on each gift.

You can simply purchase a gift for a child from infant to ages 14 and drop if off. You can also purchase a $25 gift card at WalMart which we give to the older children.

We also run a holiday party for Evergreen House in Harrisburg, PA. Evergreen House is a specialized residence providing a safe, secure and nurturing environment offering rehabilitative services for women in recovery from the disease of addiction. We shop at GIANT supermarket and prepare a meal for the residents. We can use GIANT gift cards for this event.

Northpole Hotline Fundraiser

Each holiday season, Gemma's Angels operates the North Pole Hotline. For a small, voluntary donation, "Santa" and "Mrs. Claus" calls children at their home, talks to them and wishes them a Merry Christmas.

Click here for more details and to register to receive a call.

Donate-a-Tomato Program

Our main project is the Donate-a-Tomato Program where we collect fresh produce from local gardeners and redistribute, free of charge, to soup kitchens, shelters and food banks. We also purchase fresh produce from local farmers or from produce auctions in Lancaster County when funds are available.

The Donate-a-Tomato program came about because in our past interaction with shelters, we discovered that although they receive assistance from the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, the amount of fresh produce is limited. Instead, shelters must rely on less healthy canned and boxed goods, which are often heavily processed.

We operate primarily in Dauphin and Lebanon County. We deliver, when produce is available, to the following locations:

• Downtown Daily Bread Soup Kitchen, Harrisburg
• Evergreen House Shelter, Harrisburg
• Hershey Food Bank, Hershey
• Manna Food Bank, Harrisburg
• St. Francis Soup Kitchen, Harrisburg
• Shalom House Women's Shelter, Harrisburg
• The Caring Cupboard, Palmyra
• Uptown Soup Kitchen, Harrisburg
• YWCA Women's Shelter, Harrisburg

We are also proud to announce that we have been contacted by Channels Food Rescue to serve as a collection point for fresh produce. Channels is a non-profit organization which collects perishable food from donors and distributes to our member agencies such as homeless shelters, soup kitchens, shelters, etc. To find out more about Channels Food Rescue, click here.  

Due to budget limitations, we simply cannot procure or purchase enough produce to go around. We always run out! Because we can't predict when or what produce we receive, we simply distribute when we have supplies available. We try to purchase produce at either Root's Auction in Manheim on Tuesday evenings or from vendors at the Farmer's Market in Hershey on Thursday afternoons. Of course, we can only purchase when funds are available.

Our peak collection and distribution time runs from May through November, depending on the availability of produce.