On Sick Single Mom's Potential Last Christmas, Community Donates $12K In Gifts To Her Family

Jan 07, 2020 by apost team

At only 34-years-old, single mom Juanita Marquez seemed to be looking forward to a long life. That was until she received the terrible diagnoses that she had developed stage 4 cervical cancer and that the condition was no longer reserved to one area but had instead spread throughout her body. With an unclear future, it was beginning to look like Christmas might not be very merry or bright.

12-year-old Nathaniel and 8-year-old twins Jasmine and Joslyn make up the most important things in Juanita’s life and are also her biggest support system. They pray for their mother every night, hoping that she receives a miracle.

While miracles happen every day, staff at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital know the damaging effects that a serious illness can have on a family. When they learned about Juanita’s situation, they realized that Christmas was probably looking very bleak for the family and that Juanita probably didn’t have time or money to do much shopping.

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In an effort to help out this little family, the medical staff members decided that they would work to make the family's Christmas a little better by putting together a toy drive and providing the family with a complete set of gifts to celebrate the season.

Shockingly enough, the story took a tragic turn when the gifts were stolen right off the porch of the nurse in charge of the toy drive!

Despite the evil attempts of the Grinch-like thief, Juanita’s Christmas wasn’t ruined. A local news team that had been covering the story learned about the stolen items and decided that they would post an online wish list for the family, allowing people to order over Amazon as they wanted.

The results were astonishing! Rather than just receiving a handful of the gifts on the wish list, Juanita and her children were the recipients of over $12k worth of toys, cleaning supplies, and gift cards.

And a little more surprising news? The Grinch who stole the presents returned them to the nurse’s porch, giving her the chance to share them with Juanita’s family as well!

While Juanita is enduring a terrible situation, we are so glad that a group of kind-hearted individuals banded together to help make her Christmas special and put smiles on her children’s faces.

Have you ever played Secret Santa to help someone in need? Let us know in the comments and be sure to pass this article along to others.