Guiford Youth And Family Services Gift Card Program Helps Teens

GUIFORD, CT — The Guiford Youth and Family Services' Youth Board’s gifting program to help local teens may have changed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but it is still making a difference among residents.

Rather than having community members donate gifts that are provided to Guiford teenagers, the mission now involves gift cards. As the organization again prepares to begin collecting the gift cards that will be distributed, organizers expect that anywhere between 20-30 teens will receive the gift cards.

Gift card collection will take place from 11 a.m.- 3 p.m. on Dec. 11 at the Fresh Market in Guiford Commons. After the operation was shifted to a virtual event because of the pandemic, gift cards will again be collected in-person. Organizers also said that gift cards may be dropped off at Guiford Youth and Family Services, which is located at 36 Graves St though Dec. 17.

The effort was organized by the Youth and Family Services’ Youth Board, which is comprised of Adams and Guiford High School students who want to make a positive difference in their community. This year, the group is partnering with the giving tree coordinated at Guilford High School, which donates not only gift cards from their collection but also appropriate sized pajamas for teens.

For Mike Kosko, the organization’s youth prevention specialist, seeing local teens benefit from the generosity of their community proves to be rewarding for those involved.

“Every year, we get many gracious thank-you letters from recipients who often have accepted that they were more overlooked than their younger siblings,” Kosko wrote in an email. “It is wonderful to see not only the Guilford Community supporting this effort, but local businesses such as Fresh Market as well as the faculty, staff and students from the high school.”