Community Corner
Mother-Daughter Team Wrap Gifts to Support Vulnerable Girls
Tamara Carlone and her daughter, Kaleigh, sophomore at Northville High School, need volunteers to wrap presents to support social service agency Vista Maria.
The holidays are a time for gift giving and that inevitably means gift wrapping.
Visitors to Laurel Park Place mall in Livonia will have the chance to get their gifts wrapped while supporting a worthy charity. Tamara Carlone, of Novi, and her daughter, Kaleigh Carlone, 15, student at Northville High School, are organizing a gift-wrapping event at the mall to benefit girls at social service agency Vista Maria in Dearborn Heights.
“We do over 5,000 gifts a year, and it takes a lot of hands,” said Tamara Carlone.
This is the second year that her daughter, Kaleigh, is organizing the event, which runs from Black Friday through Christmas Eve during mall hours. Last year, they raised over $20,000 and renovated the supplies closet at Vista Maria, which provides vulnerable girls with housing, schooling and special care.
“I really support what Vista Maria does and I have a passion for helping these girls,” Kaleigh Carlone said.
This year the funds will be again go to Vista Maria, which serves thousands of girls each year including those rescued from sex trafficking and those aged out of the foster care system.
Charity gift-wrapping is a family tradition
The charity gift-wrapping service has become a family tradition for the Carlones. Kaleigh Carlone’s older brother, Andrew, organized one two years ago to benefit the Hope Medical Clinic in Wayne, for which he raised $21,000. He is now at the University of Michigan studying biomedical engineering and planning for medical school, so he passed on the tradition to his sister.The mother-daughter team gets many volunteers from Northville High School’s National Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society. The majority of volunteers come from Northville High School and Novi High School, Tamara Carlone said, but they would love help from everyone.
“There’s something neat to be able to say this is a community effort. I just love that," she said.
Gift-wrapping costs between $3 and $10 and proceeds will go directly to Vista Maria. Find the Carlones and their volunteers at Laurel Park Place mall in Livonia at the Von Maur entrance from Nov. 29 to Dec. 24. Sign up to volunteer at TamaraCPA@earthlink.net.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
