{"id":14283,"date":"2026-03-10T09:18:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T09:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/how-mary-virginia-merrick-founded-the-christ-child-society\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T05:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T05:57:07","slug":"how-mary-virginia-merrick-founded-the-christ-child-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/angels-and-miracles\/angels\/how-mary-virginia-merrick-founded-the-christ-child-society\/","title":{"rendered":"How Mary Virginia Merrick Founded The Christ Child Society"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Few people know the name Mary Virginia Merrick today, but she\u2019s been making the world a better place for more than 100 years\u2014since the Christmas of 1884.<\/p>\n<p>Mary was born in 1866 to a prominent Washington, D.C., family. The city\u2019s population had swelled after <a href=\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/angels-and-miracles\/angels\/angel-s-glow-a-civil-war-mystery\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Civil War<\/a>. Many of the newcomers, including injured veterans, freed slaves, immigrants and orphaned children, lived in poverty. Children slept barefoot in doorways. Homeless people lived in alleys and courts, without sanitation. The bureau of health took steps to control contagious outbreaks, and churches raised money for charities, but there were no real organized social relief services in existence.<\/p>\n<p>From a young age, Mary accompanied her mother on visits to poor families, bringing food, blankets and clothing. The families reminded her of the characters she read about in the novels of her favorite author, Charles Dickens. She wanted to do more and learned to sew. For Mary, <a href=\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/prayer\/prayers-for-loved-ones\/combining-prayer-and-action-to-help-others\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">helping others seemed like a form of prayer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Mary was 16 when she fell from a second-story window. She spent the rest of her life in a wicker wheelchair, in nearly constant pain. How did she endure it? She redoubled her prayer life, including her efforts to help others.<\/p>\n<p>When Mary was still a teenager, she heard about a baby set to be born on Christmas Day. A child whose mother had no money for blankets or baby clothes and who would probably be wrapped in newspapers instead. Mary organized a sewing circle with her friends, and they made a set of clothes for the newborn. When they presented their meticulously stitched layette to the impoverished mother, she was overwhelmed. Mary became more determined than ever to do everything she could to make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate than her.<\/p>\n<p>She asked the young son of her family\u2019s laundress what he wanted for Christmas. \u201cI want a red wagon,\u201d the boy said. \u201cBut we\u2019re not having any Christmas at our house; my father\u2019s got no work.\u201d The happy Christmas days Mary had known herself flashed before her eyes. And this little fellow would have nothing! \u201cWhy don\u2019t you write a letter to the Christ child,\u201d Mary suggested, \u201cand ask him for the red wagon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Christ child? Who\u2019s he?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s the giver of all good gifts,\u201d Mary replied.<\/p>\n<p>A few days later the boy came back with a handful of letters from his sisters, brothers and playmates in the neighborhood. Seventeen letters in all.<\/p>\n<p>Once again Mary summoned her friends. A plan had begun to form in her mind, and her friends eagerly accepted their part in it. On <a href=\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/prayer\/holiday-prayers\/6-short-prayers-for-christmas-eve-and-christmas-day\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Christmas Day<\/a>, all of the children received their gifts, an effort that had begun with one boy\u2019s wish for a red wagon.<\/p>\n<p>The gifts were signed \u201cfrom the Christ child\u201d to show the recipients they were loved by God. It was the beginning of the organization that Mary would spend the rest of her long life building.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalchristchild.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Christ Child Society<\/a>\u2014formally founded in 1887, when Mary was 21\u2014was so named because Mary said that when she looked into the face of a child, especially a poor child, she could only see the face of Christ. By the Christmas of 1890, the society was in full swing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI never had a doll,\u201d one letter said. \u201cI want a big doll, as I have TB and no one will sleep with me.\u201d \u201cPlease, I want a nightgown,\u201d said another. \u201cMy father took his shoes back,\u201d another child wrote. \u201cHe found work. I want shoes.\u201d Mary and her friends not only fulfilled Christmas wishes but also made layettes and supplied hundreds of garments to children under the age of 12.<\/p>\n<p>Mary had a genius for bringing people together. Her friends and their friends became an army of workers, procuring, making, storing and delivering. She invited other women\u2019s groups in Washington, D.C., to join in their efforts. By the late 1890s, they had to hire trucks to distribute the gifts and clothing. Instead of waiting for requests, a \u201cvisiting committee\u201d of volunteers began to go into the alleys to find out exactly what the needs were.<\/p>\n<p>More programs were developed to address hygiene, tutoring, library resources and religious instruction. Lantern-slide presentations on cultural topics were given in jails, TB clinics, boys\u2019 homes and settlement houses for immigrants. The Fresh Air program got sickly children out of the city and into the countryside. Mary\u2019s guiding slogan became \u201cTo see a need is to fill it.\u201d By 1915, her volunteers numbered in the thousands, and branches of the society had sprung up in six other cities. Most were created by young women who had attended college in D.C. and brought their Christ Child Society volunteer work back home with them.<\/p>\n<p>Mary supervised all operations from her home. The wives of presidents, from William Henry Harrison to Harry S. Truman, made donations and wrote about her. An international convention of pediatricians invited Mary to speak about the health of children in her city and inspired her to create the first camp for <a href=\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/positive-living\/health-and-wellness\/coping-with-illness\/a-mother-her-son-and-type-1-diabetes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">children with diabetes<\/a> in the late 1920s. She was considered a groundbreaker in a new area of academic study, called social work.<\/p>\n<p>The Christ Child Society continues to be run entirely by <a href=\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/positive-living\/health-and-wellness\/caregiving\/resource-center\/the-rich-rewards-of-volunteering\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">volunteers<\/a>, most of them women, in 44 chapters across the country. \u201cNothing is too great to do for a child,\u201d Mary Virginia Merrick said. And from the time she was a child herself, she devoted herself to proving it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><em>Did you enjoy this story? Subscribe to <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/angelsonearthsub\"><strong>Angels on Earth<\/strong><\/a> <em>magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Few people know the name Mary Virginia Merrick today, but she\u2019s been making the world a better place for more than 100 years\u2014since the Christmas of 1884. Mary was born in 1866 to a prominent Washington, D.C., family. The city\u2019s population had swelled after the Civil War. Many of the newcomers, including injured veterans, freed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":25851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152],"tags":[23,19,34,24,203,171,11,181],"ppma_author":[2347],"class_list":["post-14283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-angels","tag-angels","tag-angels-on-earth","tag-child","tag-christmas","tag-community","tag-earth-angel","tag-helping-others","tag-homeless"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.6 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How Mary Virginia Merrick Founded The Christ Child Society - Guideposts Articles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Mary Virginia Merrick Founded The Christ Child Society\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Few people know the name Mary Virginia Merrick today, but she\u2019s been making the world a better place for more than 100 years\u2014since the Christmas of 1884. 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