Secret Santa for Mallory A.

To Whom this May Concern,

I would love to recommend a potential person for your Sub For Santa service project. Mallory Alexander is a single mom of 3 kids (4 B, 6 B, & 8G). She moved to Utah just over two years ago from West Virginia. Her kid’s father still lives on the east coast. She has no family in Utah and you can imagine how difficult that is with no family to lean on for support. Mallory works at a preschool in South Jordan as a teacher. She is an amazing teacher! The kids love her kind, patient, and fun personality. Mallory not only takes care of her young kids 24/7 but then she takes care of the little kids at preschool every day. Being a preschool teacher can be very mentally and physically draining but you would never know this when you watch Mallory teach. She also does various side jobs from cleaning the preschool on the weekend to donating plasma. She is always trying to make extra money to meet her family’s needs.

Mallory lives in low-income housing where the police are frequently found arresting other tenants. Mallory doesn’t feel safe in her apartment so the kids have to remain inside her two-bedroom apartment even in the nice weather. When she first moved into her apartment, she was planning to push several mattresses together to create a bed for her & her kids to sleep on. Luckily, a 3 level bunk bed was found for her kids. Mallory has to grocery shop on an extreme budget. Healthy food is too expensive and unfortunately she finds herself feeding her kids what is cheap. A co-worker went grocery shopping with Mallory & she had a one-time food stamp stipend she told the coworker that she hasn’t had an avocado in 2 years because of the high price. This breaks my heart. She also mentioned that she couldn’t afford fresh meat leaving her no options but to purchase canned food for her family.

December is an extremely difficult time of year for Mallory because there is no extra money for toys or healthy dinners. Mallory is a preschool teacher and therefore has two weeks off of work in December, which sounds wonderful, but for Mallory, it’s two weeks of no pay. Mallory is always giving to others even though she has so little. Mallory is always showing her appreciation to everyone that has served her. She brought me red roses the other day to thank me for my friendship and told me she found them on sale for only $2. She made brownies for the guys that live in the apartment above hers. She wanted to thank them for their help when they jumped her car the week before when her battery was dead in her mini van.

Mallory has a very old mini van that is falling apart quickly. It has numerous problems. All of things that I’m telling you about Mallory are not because she has told me about these things directly but I’ve gathered pieces from her to create a picture of what she deals with on a daily basis. I think this picture of her flying with her kids to visit their dad summarizes what life is like for Mallory & the kind of parent she is. (Side note: a stranger on the plane took this photo. As you can see all three kids are sleeping on her). This photo captures what her life is like to the tee. She would do anything for her kids and she is an incredibly giving person. Any support that you could offer her would be welcomed with tears of joy & gratitude.

Thank you for reading this & Merry Christmas to all!