‘Twas a week before Christmas and we’re back for the second annual OPERATION SAVE CHRISTMAS 2021!!!
Last year we raised 23k to help source as many toys as possible from local small “ma and pa” businesses and helped with other expenses for families in need all over the country.
This year we will continue to help multiple families and want to highlight the hardships that are happening to many families. We learned about the Vargas’ story from NPR. Despite working full time jobs, they haven’t been able to save enough money for a deposit on an apartment so they’ve been living in their car with their three kids in the dead of winter in Pennsylvania. They spend their money on gas to keep their boys warm and their closet is a storage unit.
So with a little holiday magic, we hope to get the Vargas family off the streets with a new roof over their heads.
We’re working hard to have them nestled in their beds by Christmas along with some presents under the tree.
Prior to COVID, there were roughly 13 million kids (approx 1 in 6) living below the poverty line in the United States – with about half of those living under conditions considered to be extreme poverty.
Many families have nothing to give their kids to open on Christmas morning. We can help change that and ease other financial burdens as the holiday season has always been much more about giving than receiving.
We can’t save the world, but with the spirit of the season – we can create a few of our own Christmas miracles for families in need and get those kids some toys to open Christmas morning too. With gratitude, Steven
Lisa Ellen Niver, M.A. Education, is a science teacher and is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 101 countries and six continents. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she worked on cruise ships for seven years and backpacked for three years in Asia. You can find her talking travel at KTLA TV and in her We Said Go Travel videos with over 1.3 million views on her YouTube channel. As a journalist, Niver has interviewed an Olympic swimmer and numerous bestselling authors and has been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. She is the founder of We Said Go Travel which is read in 235 countries and was named #3 on Rise Global’s top 1,000 Travel Blogs. She was named both a Top 10 Travel Influencer and a Top 50 Female Influencer for 2021 by Afluencer and is the Social Media Manager for the Los Angeles Press Club. She has been nominated for the inaugural Forbes 50 over 50/Know Your Value list due out in Summer 2021. She has hosted Facebook Live for USA Today 10best and has more than 150,000 followers across social media. Niver is a judge for the Gracies Awards for the Alliance of Women in Media and has also run 15 travel competitions publishing over 2,500 writers and photographers from 75 countries on We Said Go Travel.
For her print and digital stories as well as her television segments, she has been awarded two Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards. From 2017 to 2021 in the Southern California Journalism Awards and National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards, she has won four times for her broadcast television segments, print and digital articles. Niver won in 2021 as Book Critic and in 2019 for one of her KTLA TV segments NAEJ (National Arts and Entertainment Journalism) award. Niver won an award for her print magazine article for Hemispheres Magazine for United Airlines in the 2020 Southern California Journalism Awards and a 2017 Southern California Journalism Award for her print story for the Jewish Journal.
Niver has written for National Geographic, USA Today 10best, TODAY, Teen Vogue, POPSUGAR, Ms. Magazine, Luxury Magazine, Smithsonian, Sierra Club, Saturday Evening Post, AARP, American Airways, Delta Sky, En Route (Air Canada), Hemispheres, Jewish Journal, Myanmar Times, Robb Report, Scuba Diver Life, Ski Utah, Trivago, Undomesticated, Wharton Magazine and Yahoo. She is writing a book, “Brave(ish): It's All About Perspective 50 Adventures Before 50,” about her most recent travels and insights. When she's not SCUBA diving or in her art studio making ceramics, she's helping people find their next dream trip.
http://lisaniver.com/one-page/
