For the past 43 years, Grant A Wish Inc. has sponsored a holiday gift program that has provided holiday wishes to needy, disabled, and abused children for Christmas through agencies. If you want to sponsor gifts, you can scroll down until you find the Grant A Wish 2024 Sponsors Booklet on this page below, print it out, or download a copy of the sponsor's booklet and learn more about our program & sponsoring gifts, available from Friday, September 20, 2024, up to Friday, December 6, 2024 holiday, program cut-off. 

Direct Phone: (773) 454-8352, Vital Thomas

General Email: grantawish1136@gmail.com

Contact Email: vitalthomas@grantawishincchicago.org

Our Grant A Wish Annual Holiday Gift Program is a great program designed to help specifically agencies with needy, disabled, and abused children for the Annual Christmas Holiday. In 2005, the Grant A Wish Annual Holiday Gift Program was established to create a program just for this holiday before 2005 it was included in the general wish program of the organization. Our Grant A Wish 2024 Annual Holiday Gift Program will introduce new changes for agencies participating to receive holiday gifts for their children for this upcoming CHRISTMAS.

Agencies must sign a contract and agree to certain rules & regulations. The details regarding the disbursement of gifts to the children for this year's Grant A Wish 2024 Annual Holiday Gift Program are available below. Our selection process has improved as to which agencies will be selected to participate. Our sponsors and supporters are important to us and we want to give them a choice to participate more in the giving of gifts to our agency's children for this Christmas 2024. 

As of 2021, we have increased the amount to be spent on an individual gift up to $75.00 per child, which is optional for the sponsor if they spend a little more or less. We had the gift purchase limit amount at $50.00 for over 20 years and it has never increased until the year 2021. Also, the cost of some gifts is more expensive these days than in the past due to advancements in technology and toy manufacturing, new advertised toys, have increased a little more than in years past. It will also depend on what the child wishes for their holiday gift which can also vary the price, so it could be less than $75.00.

Participating sponsors will be emailed a list based on the number of children they want to sponsor anywhere from 10 to 20 children's names per holiday wish sheet, with each line having the child's complete name & info per line & each name is assigned a wish number beginning with the current year & the sequential numbers on each sheet assigned to an agency. Sponsors, who want to sponsor just 5 children can just email us for possible availability of a list with only 5 names. We will be able to provide you with those 5 names depending on which agency or list you get as to when those gifts will be due at some point in mid-December 2024.

On each holiday wish sheet per line will be the child's full name, their age, their sex, and a 1st & 2nd request for each child. The reason for the 1st & 2nd requests is for gift choice availability and for you to have a choice as to what gift to purchase, but you only have to purchase one. It is up to you the sponsor if you wish to buy both gifts for the one child. The participating community-based agency must follow our guidelines for the holiday program. Many of the children individually may ask for a variety of different things based on new toys advertised, new clothing, or new electronic or other games in the marketplace. But many will ask for basic items like a new toy, new game, new shoes, new coat, new hat/gloves/scarves set, dolls, new electronic educational/sports/adventure games or any other items advertised for the Christmas holiday.

You or your sponsoring group can determine how many gifts you want to purchase and for how many children. Corporations or groups can help sponsor a holiday party for the children and directly give the gifts to those children or attend a holiday party organized by the agency to witness the distribution of the gifts provided approval by the agency. Corporations for example: can take, 20, 60, or 100 names and split the list up among their office or company employees. Each employee will take one or multiple names, provide what the child wants, and follow the instructions for wrapping, labeling, and returning the gift to your company coordinator for our holiday program. 

We have deadlines for delivery in December of 2024 or pick-ups based on agency party dates, which will be streamlined for 2024 several weeks before Christmas on Wednesday, December 25, 2024. For completed purchases or tax purposes, we can send out a package with individual tax letters for all of your company's employees who request one, based on expenditure amounts for gifts purchased. Only for those who have gone out and purchased a gift for a child. The amount should be no more than $75.00 per individual gift unless you are purchasing multiple gifts for several children collectively by yourself, but it is up to the sponsor as to what they are willing to spend for that child or multiple children they are assigned based on the gifts collective purchased amount.

 If you spend more we will send you a requested tax letter for whatever amount you spend. Whatever is listed as the expenditure for the gift, will be the amount on the tax letter & receipt. If you purchase multiple gifts for more than one child then the total amount will be on the tax letter & receipt. Just let us know the breakdown of the purchases or the general amount.

Grant A Wish welcomes individuals, families, small businesses, and corporate sponsors throughout the Greater Chicago land area, including suburban areas outside of Chicago to participate in our Grant A Wish 2024 Annual Holiday Gift Program. You or your group can help fill holiday wishes for needy, disabled, and abused children. We provide holiday gifts to our agencies for their children. Your company or group will split up the holiday wish request with your employees or associates and they will go out & purchase those gifts, wrap them, label them (with the appropriate information on each gift label), bag multiple gifts, label, and deliver them to Grant A Wish or make arrangements for us to pick up the gifts or your company can drop them off to the agency directly.

 All agencies are assigned an individual color code for their gifts and all bags must have the appropriate colored ribbon affixed and a tag listing in numerical order the number of gifts in each bag for identification purposes. All individual gifts are not to exceed the cost of $75.00, in some cases, a child might ask for an item that may be reasonable in price and both items can be purchased as long as both items are reasonable in cost for the sponsor or the sponsor wants to buy both. It is ultimately up to the discretion of the sponsor what financial limitations they are willing to impose. Gifts placed in bags should be in some sort of numerical order.

All donations are tax-deductible for your purchases for the Grant A Wish 2024 Annual Holiday Gift Program. Sponsors can save money on purchases by searching for bargains, utilizing or seeking coupons(digital or paper), shopping online, searching for sales, shopping at discount stores, etc. Keep your receipts for your purchases for your taxes and your records. You have to keep in mind the importance of agreeing to grant wishes around the Christmas Holiday for many of these children. We started in 2015, at the end of the sponsor's booklet, we created a simple contract or agreement that you must fill out agreeing to follow through to complete your involvement in the holiday program to purchase gifts, it is now mandatory for the holiday gift program. In the past few years, we have experienced in a few cases an individual taking a list and not following through on their agreement. So if it is something you know will be difficult to complete, don't take the list.

We can provide you with our current State of Illinois Retail Sales Tax Exemption Certificate to save on collective holiday purchases only. You can work with Grant A Wish for assistance with large purchases to save on the state tax if the retailer wants us to be registered to use the tax exemption we can work that out, but only for purchases related to our organization's Grant A Wish 2024 Annual Holiday Gift Program to save money when you are spending more money collectively on gifts for the children at one time. We encourage you to purchase the item the child has requested to make the wish more fulfilling. 

If you are pooling money together to buy gifts then the tax exemption will save you money especially, if you are spending more than $100.00 to $500.00 at any one time collectively, by saving you money on the retail tax. You may be able to purchase an extra gift for a child with extra savings or just save some money.

Most of the lists with children's names are being sent out by email to area companies within the first two weeks of November of each year into December and all gifts are expected to be accessible to Grant A Wish, the agency, or at the agencies holiday party directly at some point in December 2024. (As a part of our agency agreement all agencies must sponsor a holiday party at their expense to disburse the gifts to the children whether an open or closed holiday party, on a date selected at some point in December 2024 before Christmas December 25, 2024.) 

We work to ensure our agencies comply with our written agreements related to the children receiving the collective specifically assigned gift. Grant A Wish, Inc. is also considering hosting our holiday party to disburse gifts but it depends on sponsorship or financial donations to any possible events.

Together we can provide sponsorship imagination

 to help host our holiday parties, info is available.

Below is a breakdown of our timetable for this year's holiday program. We have instituted some changes to our holiday program for agencies that are applying for this Christmas 2024. They are as follows: 

Grant A Wish 2024 Annual Holiday Gift Program, Application For Applying Agencies Is Available Below: Beginning Friday, September 13, 2024, to the end of the day on Thursday, October 3, 2024, at 5:00 p.m. The application will no longer be available after that day & time, no exceptions.

Application for this year's Grant A Wish 2024 Annual Holiday Gift Program must be submitted to us no later than Friday, October 4, 2024, by 5:00 p.m. by mail or email only. Applications not dated received by the deadline will not be accepted for this year's holiday program, with no exceptions.

Beginning the second week of October of 2024 from Monday, October 7, 2024, through to October 11, 2024 agencies are chosen to participate in this year's Grant A Wish 2024 Annual Holiday Gift Program. Once your agency has been notified that it has been ACCEPTED by phone or email into this year's Grant A Wish 2024 Annual Holiday Gift Program, you must submit the surcharge donation to Grant A Wish, Inc. immediately call for info. If your donation surcharge is not received within 24 hours of notification that you have been accepted your agency application will be removed from processing. 

On Friday, October 18, 2024, by or before 5:00 p.m. Welcome packages for all accepted Grant A Wish Holiday Agencies are emailed to those selected agencies. The welcome package will include a welcome letter, a copy of your application, an event contract you fill out for your holiday party when organized, a receipt for your surcharge donation, and a holiday program flyer. All of your custom-made color-coded holiday wish sheets in PDF format pre-numbered for the number of children at your agency that we have agreed to sponsor & they are to be filled out by you or your agency representative & emailed back to us by the deadline of Friday, November 1, 2024, so we can begin sending out our holiday wish sheets earlier to give our sponsor more time to complete holiday wish sheets ahead for Christmas 2024. 

If you are having any problems completing the list don't hesitate to contact us ahead before the deadline. On the custom-made wish sheets you are to enter the child's complete first & last name, the child's age, the sex & a 1st request for an item under $75.00 & a 2nd request for an item under $75.00 per line. The sponsor decides to buy just one of the gifts or buy both & which may be decided on the fact that purchasing both gifts collectively may be within the $75.00 range or they just don't mind spending extra, but it is their choice. Even if an item is $15.00, they still are only required to buy one, so give your selection some thought.

All agency party contracts must be filled out and submitted with the filled-out custom holiday wish sheets by Friday, November 15, 2024, by 5:00 p.m. Within the welcome package are all of your custom-made holiday wish sheets that are specifically colored-coded for each agency. They are sent to you numbered & blank and they are sent to you in a PDF format. 

You are to download our custom PDF holiday sheet and provide the children's information per line on each holiday wish sheet with a maximum of 20 names on a sheet, so depending on the number of children we have agreed to provide holiday gifts. You will receive the sheets up to that number. You are to fill them out and return them to us by Friday, November 8, 2024, by 5:00 p.m. 

If we don't receive all of your holiday sheets you will be eliminated from the holiday program after that date & time has passed. Any funds for a surcharge paid will be non-refundable. So if you have any issues or questions don't hesitate to call and get some assistance in advance. 

Once those sheets are sent back to us filled out, we will then begin emailing them out to our sponsors and donors who begin to request holiday wish sheets in early to mid-November of 2024. Finally, beginning in December of 2024, we organize gifts to be delivered or picked up by our agencies or Grant A Wish up to Christmas of 2024. Due to gifts coming in late in 2022 by some of our sponsors, we have established a deadline for when all gifts are to be made available for retrieval within 2 weeks in December of 2024. 

Also mandatory, all gifts that are picked up by our holiday agency or anyone acting on behalf of an agency must sign off that all gifts were accounted for from the individual sponsor to the agency. That form will be emailed to our sponsoring company so there is no confusion as to what was picked up the agency can sign it and the company just keeps it for their records.

This year 2024 gifts need to be picked up or delivered on these days from Monday, December 16, 2024, to our cut-off day of Friday, December 20, 2024, by 8:00 p.m. 

Christmas this year is on Wednesday, December 25, 2024. 

Agencies that are having events can sponsor them during those days if your party is on a weekday or weekend. The reason for the agency contract is for us to know in advance when you will be disbursing gifts to the children, so gifts can be organized to be available before your event day.

Any photos that need to be submitted for our annual Thank You Holiday Video need to be submitted by agencies, sponsoring companies, or other related photos sent to Grant A Wish, Inc. by email no later than on Sunday, December 29, 2024, or before as available to: grantawish1136@gmail.com. Thank you for your participation in this year's holiday program. It is a collective effort and all sponsors need to adhere to the packaging of gifts with the use of the color code and to do their best to provide the holiday gift the child has requested. Thank You for all of your hard work.

We encourage that purchased holiday gifts are positive for the child and we discourage children from asking for unreasonable items, like:

1. Items over $75.00(Sponsorship Discretion)

2. Bicycles

3. Cellphones

4. Play guns, knives, or weapons

5. Or any item that may be deemed inappropriate for a child.

6. Video game systems over $75.00 or video games over $75.00 & that are too violent in their content.

Most of the time before lists are sent out to sponsoring companies providing holiday gifts, we check for items that are on our do not purchase list or items over the cost of $75.00. If an item does appear on the holiday wish list, that is deemed inappropriate do not purchase it or use your discretion. When it comes to video games, we think some games are educationally challenging and help a child develop decision-making skills. But you can substitute the item with something age-appropriate if you feel the gift has the potential to harm the child one way or the other. 

Some system games, like Xbox or PlayStation games, have age restrictions. But it is up to the sponsor whether you want to purchase that item to fulfill the wish because children usually can get access to games restricted through other means or the age restriction may be borderline for use. Most of the time violent games are given age restrictions due to the intensity of the game content.

We want children to be happy and to have some expectation of joy, especially around the Christmas Holiday, the season of giving from the heart. It is OK for a child to have dreams, wishes, or to want to possess something that will make them excited, like a new toy or game, a new pair of shoes, a new coat, new clothes, or a variety of other things that most of the time are material in nature. When the gifts are delivered to Grant A Wish, Inc. Your company or group will be included in our annual holiday Thank You video, provided that you send in video or photos from your group or company. Otherwise, we will post whatever photos or videos that we have taken or received at some point through the holiday program.

 We want to thank collectively companies or group supporters, sponsors, or donors for their support in the video. Any request for tax letters or receipts, we will provide upon request. If individual names are not provided to Grant A Wish for tax purposes, then the company must make sure we receive that information for them to receive an individual tax letter & receipt based on the information provided which is specific to whatever amount they spent on our tax documents. 

All of the wish numbers for Grant A Wish, Inc. agency children begin with the year: Example: 2024- the number XXXX. Each program except the food program is assigned blocks of wish numbers at the beginning of each year for their program clients.

Contact us for participation in our

Grant A Wish 

2024

 Annual Holiday Gift Program.

Direct communication is available to vitalthomas@grantawishincchicago.org

Mr. Vital's Thomas-Program Oversight

Review our instructional sponsor's booklet available on this page, beginning Friday, September 20, 2024. Make sure it is something that you will be able to complete & you must fill out the contract in the sponsor's booklet to confirm your participation. Information is available in the booklet & on this page that may answer your questions about the holiday program. You can email us and we can provide the necessary information for your company, group, family, or as an individual wanting to help provide gifts. 

We have a basic agreement for multiple gift purchases by you or your group. Starting for this year's 2024 Holiday Program, it is mandatory to submit a contract, that you agree to follow, between you, your group, and Grant A Wish, Inc. that you agree to provide the designated gifts around the designated time agreed upon at some point in December 2024. Gifts can be picked up by Grant A Wish or delivered by you or your group.

Agency children are depending on these gifts for the December 2024 Christmas Holiday and we do not want to disappoint them with late or absent gifts. We want to thank you in advance for your love, your support, and your help in making this year's Grant A Wish 2024 Annual Holiday Gift Program a great success for the children we provide holiday joy & gifts.