A ‘KISS’
for the community: Donations bring clothes, toys to kids at
Christmas
Thank
you from KISS
'Tis
the Season to the Jolly
Miami
Herald: Graham wraps up 'workday' (12/23/2004)
The Citizen: KISS wraps up holiday deliveries (12/25/04)
A
‘KISS’ for the community: Donations bring clothes,
toys to kids at Christmas
BY DAVID HAWKINS, dahwkins@keysreporter.com
Posted-Thursday, December 6, 2007
It’s that time of year again, when a host of local Saint
Nicks will help bring holiday cheer to underprivileged children
in the community. They do it by donating money, toys and clothing,
and their time, to a nonprofit organization known as KISS.
The acronym stand for “Kids In Special Situations,”
and according to its founder, Carlos Del Valle, this will be the
21st year that the organization is asking the community to help
make the holidays happier for local children.
KISS
is asking residents to help by donating cash and gifts and by
volunteering so less-fortunate kids in the Upper and Middle Keys
will receive gifts and needed clothing for Christmas.
KISS got started more than two decades ago when Del Valle won
several restaurant gift certificates from a weekly newspaper,
which he wanted to use to benefit local children. The newspaper
and volunteers helped create a holiday party for kids whose families
were experiencing hardships.
The party took place at the former Harry’s
Place in Tavernier, and the benefactors decided from the beginning
that they wouldn’t take any credit, calling it a “no
names, no photos” party.
Over the years, there were more children than
could be accommodated at one party, so KISS started delivering
shoes, clothing and gifts directly to the children.
To help the organization meet its mission this
year, cash donations are especially needed, Del Valle said. The
money is used to purchase shoes, clothing and one special gift
for each child.
In an interview last year with The Reporter, Del
Valle said all donations are needed. “Little by little it
all adds up,” Del Valle said. “We tell people no donation
is too small. If you want to send $5 we treasure that as much
as $5,000 because it’s the thought of the gift and the giving
that counts.”
Though the group has several hundred sponsors,
KISS loses some every year as people age or move away, Del Valle
said.
In each of the last two holiday seasons, KISS
has presented gifts to close to 400 kids. The children are recommended
to KISS by their schools, shelters and charitable organizations,
according to Del Valle.
Donations can be made by check and mailed to KISS,
154 Sebring Dr., Tavernier FL 33070. Anyone who wants to volunteer
can contact volunteer coordinator Chris Buchanan at (305) 394-5824.
KISS
is a registered 501(c)(3) charitable organization, Del Valle said.
More than 350 volunteers and donors are expected to help out this
year.
KISS
By Dave Whitney
‘Tis
the Season to be Jolly and for the past two decades a group of
local volunteers have been bringing joy to the hearts of hundreds
of Keys Kids in Special Situations.
The group – known as KISS – started out in 1987 as
the “No Names, No Photos” Christmas Party for kids
who would not have had a Christmas due to circumstances beyond
their control.
KISS was the brainchild of local charter fishing Capt. Carlos
Del Valle who collaborated with Marie Taylor-Whitney, who now
owns The Print Shop in Islamorada, to throw a party for kids who
were, in many cases, left out on the street during the holidays.
Del Valle had become an expert at winning “Name the Photo”
contests in the then new Islamorada Free Press. Whitney-Taylor
was working on the front desk one day when he came in to collect
his winnings – free dinners for two at a local restaurant.
Noting that he had now won nearly a dozen dinners, Taylor-Whitney
asked Del Valle if he was trying to feed an army.
“No, just trying to take a lot of needy kids to dinner for
Christmas,” was his reply.
“How many do you have?” Taylor-Whitney asked.
“A couple dozen,” Del Valle replied.
“Let’s take them all!” She suggested.
And take them all they did. The actual number turned out to be
37 that year and grew over the years. This year nearly 300 kids
from Key Largo to Sugarloaf Key will benefit from KISS’s
efforts to provide them a holiday they might not otherwise enjoy.
Local restauranteurs, food suppliers, and just a whole lot of
anonymous donors pitched in to make the “No Names, No Photos”
Christmas parties a resounding success for the first five years.
No one ever left one of those parties with dry eyes.
But the KISS program – now a non-profit trust – simply
outgrew the space available to provide a Christmas dinner every
year for all the kids that might otherwise not get one.
Fifteen years ago it became a program where the gifts are delivered
directly to the children in time for Christmas
From its inception, KISS provided more than a Christmas dinner
and some toys. It was designed to not only provide some enjoyment
for the kids who participated but also to help supplement their
meager lives through the year ahead. Shoes and durable clothing
was the underlying need that KISS aimed to fill and fill it well
they have.
Del Valle has shopped personally for all these years – sometimes
buying 150-200 pairs of sneakers at a time. In the last two years
he has seen items nearly double in cost. Even the simplest items
have become difficult to buy in large quantities. When faced with
purchasing for 300 kids it becomes a costly situation.
KISS does not directly solicit businesses or individuals in person
or by phone. It relies on the people who hear or read about the
program and encourages those who would like to help some of the
kids who are a little down on their luck to contact KISS by e-mail
at www.KISSTRUST.ORG
Volunteers are needed to wrap all the presents that will go to
the kids this year. You can volunteer, or make a donation, by
calling Chris at (305) 394-5824. Or you can make a donation directly
by sending it to: Kiss Trust Inc. 154 Sebring Dr. Tavernier, FL
33070
Kiss
Trust Inc. is a 501(c) 3 Non-profit Corp EIN# 65-0474101
Graham
puts in his final `workday'
By Maya Bell
Miami Bureau
December
23, 2004
ISLAMORADA
· The millionaire who made a political career out of shoveling
manure, gutting mullet and singing in his underwear capped 38
years of public service Wednesday by wrestling a lime-green frog
into Christmas wrapping for a needy, little boy.
For
his final official "workday" -- No. 408 -- retiring
U.S. Sen. Bob Graham distributed Christmas toys for underprivileged
kids in the Florida Keys, wrapping up three decades of side-by-side
labor with common folks who helped make him one of Florida's most
popular politicians.
Spreading
Christmas cheer wasn't the toughest of his day jobs -- though
Graham's wrapping skills left much to be desired. The two-term
governor and three-time senator admitted it would have been wiser
to leave that chore to his wife.
"He
needed a little instruction," said Angie King, a massage
therapist and director of Kids in Special Situations, a volunteer
organization that has bought and distributed thousands of Christmas
toys each of the past 18 years. "But with a little training,
he was wrapping like a champ."
Many
claim credit for Graham's workdays, but the dairyman-turned-developer
unwittingly planted the seed for his trademark practice -- some
would say gimmick -- in 1974 when high schoolers complained to
him about their cafeteria pizza.
At
the time, Graham, a Democrat, chaired the state Senate education
committee and wasn't too surprised about the complaint. He was
never fond of the vittles at his Miami High alma mater.
But
he was amazed the Jacksonville students took a local school issue
to the Legislature. He was even more aghast to learn they already
griped to the mayor and sheriff. So he lectured a group of civics
teachers, telling them something was amiss when students thought
the sheriff had influence over cold pizza.
A
teacher from Miami-Dade County tossed the gauntlet.
"You
politicians are always telling us what to do, but you don't know
what you're talking about unless you've done it," she said,
challenging Graham to teach civics for himself.
He
agreed, thinking it'd be for an hour. To his dismay, she arranged
a semester.
After
18 weeks of "What Every Citizen Needs to Know to Make Government
Work for Them," Graham walked out of Room 207 at Carol City
High transformed.
"It
was a life-changing experience," he said. "I learned
more about the reality of education in 18 weeks than I had in
eight years on education committees in the Legislature."
Three
years later, when Graham embarked on his improbable run for governor,
the little-known contender spent nearly a third of the yearlong
campaign -- 100 days -- walking in the shoes of working men and
women.
At
first, he tested himself quietly, putting in anonymous days as
a nursing home orderly, a stable boy and a cigar factory worker
before announcing his candidacy and workday commitment on June
28, 1977. If elected, he vowed to do one workday a month.
"The
governor of this state should understand the needs, the concerns,
the hopes and desires of the people he serves before making decisions
that will affect their lives," he said at the time, taking
a break from puttying walls at a Tallahassee mobile home factory.
Many
of Graham's friends were skeptical. Few thought the Harvard-educated
lawyer could win.
"He
was a terrible politician," remembers DuBose Ausley, a Tallahassee
lawyer. "If you asked him the time, he'd tell you how to
build a clock."
But
as Graham bused tables in a Little Havana eatery, heaved fertilizer
at a Frostproof factory and stomped sponges on the Tarpon Springs
docks, he grew less aloof, more down-to-earth.
"I
give workdays a lot of credit for that," said Graham, who
later had no qualms about appearing on stage in boxer shorts for
a role in The Fantasticks. "I knew people better, and understood
their lives and could talk in their language."
The
workdays became the backbone of Graham's dark-horse campaign,
providing the picture-perfect fodder for commercials and the free
publicity that helped raise his profile and standing in the polls.
And try as they might, no one caught him slacking, or slipping
out the back door when the cameras left.
In
one memorable stint, he worked as a bellhop at an Orlando hotel,
delivering luggage to the penthouse suite of none other than Bob
Shevin, Florida's attorney general and the favorite to win the
governor's race.
Putting
Shevin's bags down, Graham heard an aide shush him from another
room.
"The
general is still sleeping," she said. He left on tiptoe,
without a tip.
Twenty-seven
years later, he paraphrased the headline in the next day's Orlando
Sentinel with great glee: "Graham works while the general
sleeps."
For
his part, Shevin credits the workdays for his loss, and Graham's
success.
"It
worked like gangbusters," Shevin said. "It was extremely
important in the outcome of the election, and in the outcome of
everything Graham has done."
Indeed,
many Graham initiatives came from a workday. Toiling as a mechanic
at a Toyota dealership, he was appalled to discover a car without
brakes had just passed the state's safety inspection. As governor,
he led the effort to abolish the state's system of auto inspections.
But
perhaps the most significant lesson Graham took to Tallahassee,
and later to Washington, he found among the indifferent workers
at the state unemployment office in Tampa. It was a sign on the
men's restroom door: "Employees Only."
Incensed
that job-seekers were barred from a public bathroom, Graham made
a promise to himself: "If I get elected governor, the first
thing I am going to do is come back and take down that sign."
That
sign hung in the Governor's Mansion for eight years, Graham said
as he readied for his last official workday, "to remind me
of who we were working for."
KISS
makes Keys Christmas More Enjoyable
They
could be fighting in Iraq now. Or walking the beat as a cop in
New York. Or fishing a tournament offshore in Venezuela. Or just
about anything else.
The one thing they have in common is that they are KISS - Kids
in Special Situation - alumni. One of thousands of anonymous kids
who have been given a leg up by literally hundreds of an Anonymous
people in the Florida Keys over the past two decades.
It all started out because one Islamorada fishing captain - Carlos
DelValle - had a thing for kids, especially during the holidays.
He cashed in on it by trying each week to win a "Name the
Photo" contest in a local newspaper to get two more tickets
to a local restaurant to take some more needy kids to dinner.
Working on the front desk of the newspaper at the time was Marie
Taylor-Whitney who, after finding Carlos at the front door when
the paper opened several weeks in a row, asked him why he was
trying to win so many free meals.
When she discovered Carlos' reason the two of them got their heads
together and decided the next logical step would be simply to
throw a big Christmas party, including dinner and gifts, for all
the needy kids in the Upper Keys.
It sounded like a tall order, but when asked to help people willingly
volunteered. The late "Mama" Cleta Hartman, who ran
the kitchen and restaurant at the old Harry's Place in Tavernier
took on the task of feeding the multitudes - what was perceived
as a small gathering in the beginning literally turned into a
multitude of kids in the years to come.
It started out as the "No Names, No Photos" Christmas
Party for Kids in Special Situations. The kids that got invited
were identified by various social service groups in the county
- kids who would not otherwise have had a Christmas due to circumstances
beyond their control.
The first party saw almost 100 kids show up, from foster-care
children to children from homes where domestic situations had
developed literally putting them on the streets during the holiday
season had it not been for the KISS contact.
No one ever left a "No Names, No Photos" Christmas Party
with a dry eye.
From the beginning, aware of the needs of foster care children
and the small allowance the state provided foster parents to care
for them, it was decided that KISS would provide more than just
Christmas dinner and the typical Christmas presents. The first
thing purchased for each child was a pair of shoes good enough
to last them at least a year. Next on each kid's list was underwear
and other essentials, again enough to last a year. And then came
the toys.
By the end of the third "No Names, No Photos" Christmas
party over 300 needy children were being taken care of annually
by the KISS group of volunteers. Donations to support the operations
came in from across the community. The coverage of the group extended
to the Middle Keys.
Some Christmases every kid who came to the party got a free bicycle.
Prisoners in the Monroe County Jail rebuild confiscated bikes
with parts donated by a local bike shop until there were enough
of them for every kid that came to the party.
The Monroe County Sheriff's Office had always been supportive
of the KISS project. One year, on the day of the Christmas party,
deputies brought two kids who had just seen their mother critically
beaten by their father up in the Everglades. They desperately
needed the warm, down-home comfort of the "No Names, No Photos"
Christmas party.
The demand for KISS services, which had been expanded to year-around
in instances where kids needed something "right now"
and their was no one else to deliver, grew beyond the capacity
of the old Harry's Place to handle the annual party. Mama Cleta
died and Harry's Place eventually went under the wrecker's ball.
DelValle, seeing what lay ahead, incorporated KISS as KISS Trust,
Inc. - the name under which it still operates today. Hundreds
of Florida Keys children are served by it 12 months out of each
year with the Christmas holiday season being the prime time. Kids
today still get the basic necessities they got in the beginning,
plus toys that befit their age.
Their anonymity is protected as it always has been.
The program is supported by volunteers and donations from the
community. If you would like to participate contact:
KISS,
( Kids In Special Situations) 154 Sebring Drive Tavernier, FL
33070
To
volunteer contact Ms. Angie King 305-853- 9756
