St. Charles nonprofit delivers over 10,000 presents to local children in need

Hundreds of St. Charles families in need received Christmas presents from local sponsors on Dec. 3 as part of their annual Christmas Sponsorship program.

The Big Hearts of Fox Valley office was packed wall-to-wall with bags full of presents shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday evening, with volunteers ready to start distributing them to families lined up in a drive through outside the office at 720 N. 17th St.

Big Hearts of Fox Valley is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in St. Charles founded in 2014 to benefit School District 303 children and families facing financial hardships. District 303 social workers and administrators work with Big Hearts to identify children in need.

Big Hearts was founded by Minor Mobley, a St. Charles resident, veteran and business owner, and his wife, Jennifer, who is president and co-founder of the foundation.

This year BHFV supported 231 families, completing wish lists and collecting over 10,000 presents for a total of 550 children. Jennifer Mobley said the number of families they supported was about average in comparison to recent years.

Teams of volunteers coordinated the process, some directing traffic, others identifying the corresponding gifts for each family and others running them out to load up the vehicles. A total of about 20 volunteers donated time to help the process run smoothly.

Kane County resident and District 303 alum Rick Shales was part of the team sorting and distributing the gifts during the event. This was his third year volunteering at the event.

Shales said he learned about the organization after getting to know Minor Mobley through working out at the same gym. He said he keeps coming back because it’s a great way to give back while getting into the Christmas spirit.

“I love Christmas and I love helping,” Shales said. “So it’s a great opportunity for helping people out and getting into the spirit. Just trying to do something for someone else.”

Shales said he would never have guessed that there were so many people in need in a town like St. Charles, but said it was great to see that so many people were willing to give back as sponsors.

“It’s cool that they’re helping so many people,” Shales said. “I think that’s pretty impressive. It’s good that there’s things like this in a town that has such economic diversity. It’s incredible.”

St. Charles resident and mayoral candidate Clint Hull was at the event volunteering for the first time, directing traffic and helping load cars with donations.

“Very very impressive,” Hull said. “So neat, so organized, so generous. What a great organization. I’m impressed by the number of volunteers. That’s incredible.”

Hull said he was amazed by the number of people they served and how generous the sponsors and volunteers were. He said while he has read about the organizations events before, seeing it in person is completely different.

Social workers from District 303 were also volunteering at the event, and members of the St. Charles Fire Department were on site helping with traffic control.

The last cars were loaded up around 9 p.m. Tuesday evening.

This was the 11th annual Christmas Sponsorship program since BHFV was founded in 2014. The program was designed to ensure children in School District 303 receive meaningful gifts, purchased by a sponsor from wish lists created by their families.

The wish lists often feature a combination of toys to bring joy and essential items such as clothing, coats and shoes, and each sponsor spends about $75 to $100 on each child. By that estimate, roughly $50,000 worth of gifts were distributed at the event.

The Christmas Gift Sponsorship program is one of four programs BHFV runs to support District 303 students and families throughout the year. They also run the Back to School program, Warm Coats Warm Hearts and Big Hearts Throughout the Year.

BHFV exclusively serves District 303 students, which include children from St. Charles and portions of Wayne, Wasco, Elburn, West Chicago, South Elgin, Campton Hills and unincorporated Kane County.