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Many, many thanks for your purchases of 6,398 Gifts of Hope during the 2008 Advent and Christmas seasons. A total of $150,333 worth of gifts was purchased. Thanks to generous grants from the Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Regional Office and several local chapters, the grand total for 2008 came to $163,636.
The most popular gift choice was a basket of books. Southeast Ministry in Washington DC now fills baskets with books for children to take home free and stocks shelves with books for adults to select and take home. Many families benefit from having books in their homes.
The gift with the largest total dollar amount was a week of summer camp for a child. Camp scholarships worth over $10,000 were available this summer for children who otherwise could not attend Mar Lu Ridge, an outdoor ministry of the ELCA situated in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains. Your gift purchases bring joy!
Projects and services at each organization benefited from your gifts. Here are the totals received by each:
| Caroline Furnace Lutheran Camp | $2,903 |
| Community Family Life Services | 18,226 |
| Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia | 4,278 |
| Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia | 6,228 |
| Fellowship Square Foundation | 12,903 |
| Good Shepherd Housing | 4,413 |
| Lutheran Church in El Salvador |
13,134 |
| Lutheran Church in Slovakia | 6,376 |
| Lutheran Social Services | 10,175 |
| Lutheran Volunteer Corp | 14,843 |
| Mar-Lu-Ridge Camp | 10,253 |
| N Street Village | 14,501 |
| National Lutheran Home | 10,163 |
| Paulinum Theological Seminary in Namibia | 4,273 |
| Southeast Ministry | 11,006 |
| Transitional Housing Corporation | 7,468 |
In addition to the gifts listed in the catalog, some congregations designated gifts for special projects. Gifts for these projects totaled $13,303.
Because Gifts of Hope is entirely operated by volunteers and has received grants from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans to cover printing and web costs, everything you spend on gifts goes to the organizations that you designate. In 2008 the total cost to print cards and catalogs, purchase envelopes, copy information for congregations, and support the web site was $3,249, and volunteers gave more than 1,000 hours of their time.