Local organization helps single parents put gifts under the Christmas tree

RIVERTON, Utah — With prices on the rise on almost everything, providing Christmas gifts is proving difficult for many families, especially for single parent households.

Local organization, The Single Parent Project, plans to connect nearly 100 single parent families with sponsors from the community. Each sponsor can donate gifts to children or make a monetary donation to the organization. 

With prices on the rise on almost everything, providing Christmas gifts is proving difficult for many families… especially for single parent households.
At 10:00, how a local organization is making sure these families have gifts under the tree @KSL5TV pic.twitter.com/z8UGrdNMic

— Ashley Moser (@AshleyMoser) November 26, 2022

Meghann Brimhall, the organization’s president of operations, said in 2020, they helped 60 families, and last year, they sponsored 85 families in need. They feel the need is even greater this year with record inflation.

“The prices are increasing on gas, groceries, and rent is outrageous right now,” said Brimhall, who was once a single parent. “That $50-$100 a month they could be saving could also be their Christmas budget.”

The organization is hoping more community members will sign up to sponsor additional families through their website by Dec. 14. 

“For these little kids, Christmas is such a big deal. You don’t want them to ever feel like they are going without,” Brimhall said. “It is huge for a kid to have to watch their parent struggle in any sort of aspect.”

Michelle Merrill knows what it is like to feel the pressures of being a single parent.

“I am a single parent myself. It was tough for the last 18 years, but it’s really tough now, especially with the way the world is right now,” Merrill said.

Merrill signed up to sponsor a mother and two children this year. She’s excited to pay it forward and to let fellow single parents know she has their back.

“There are probably some families and single parents out there that just don’t have as much support as I did, so this is my way of giving them a little bit of support,” she said.