Honoring Grandma

by Vivian Wagner

Emily Douglas dearly loved her grandmother, Norma Jean. From an early age, Douglas listened to her grandmother’s stories about growing up poor in a family with 12 children in Appalachia. She also watched her grandmother—later in life, when she had a little more means—giving generously to people in need.

After her grandmother died in 1991, Douglas wanted to do something to honor her spirit—and just before Thanksgiving, 1992, the 10-year-old began to consider how she could do that. At the grocery store, she noticed that while her family had a shopping cart filled with a turkey and all the other food they would want, another family was buying just a loaf of bread and a package of bologna.

When she asked her mother about how they might help, her mother replied, “You realize that that’s how your grandma grew up. If you don’t like what you see, you can do something about it.”

That idea inspired the young girl from Powell, Ohio (pop. 6,247). Douglas decided, with her mother’s help, to write a letter to alumni of Ironton City High School, which her parents had attended, asking for donations to help the poor in the upcoming Christmas season. With the money received, she bought gifts that she and her mother distributed to people at homeless shelters. Douglas’s career in charity had begun.

She named her program Grandma’s Gifts. It’s grown over the last nine years, and one of the biggest projects now is her Christmas Angel program, for which Douglas collects donations from around the country for toys and clothes that are distributed to needy children of Appalachian counties in West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky.

Other Grandma’s Gifts projects include Valentines for Veterans, for which schoolchildren make valentines that Douglas sends to veterans hospitals; a book drive for collecting and distributing gently-used books to needy children, libraries, schools, and other institutions in Appalachia; scholarship fundraising for elementary students attending special workshops at Ohio University in Athens; and a Thanksgiving food drive.

Now 21 and a junior majoring in political science at Ohio’s Miami University, Douglas still does most of the charity work herself—writing letters, planning projects, and making sure donations get where they’re needed, when they’re needed.

The garage at her parents’ house is filled with donated items, with overflow stored in warehouse space donated by her father—and a core group of college friends regularly helps her with Grandma’s Gifts projects.

Despite all her charity work, Douglas is surprisingly modest.

“I’m not the kind of person who would go up to someone and say, ‘Guess what I do,’” says Douglas, who likes to go shopping, talk on the phone, and go dancing with her friends—just like any other college student. “I’m very normal.”

Douglas plans on continuing her work with Grandma’s Gifts for as long as she is able—helping others just as she remembers watching her grandma do years ago.

“I think my grandmother would be proud of me because I’ve been able to help so many people,” she says. “She thought all people should give back and help others out.”

Vivian Wagner is a freelance writer in New Concord, Ohio.

first appeared: 6/8/2003