Catholic Charities ‘Wrapped with Love 2025’ Events Spread Holiday Joy Across Central and Eastern North Carolina
Our regional offices’ tireless work to assist our neighbors in need takes a festive turn as the holiday season arrives. A number of the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Raleigh’s regional offices announce their Wrapped with Love (WwL) applications for families, and each year they are filled almost instantly. Wrapped with Love is a Christmas initiative that provides new toys and essential supplies to families, helping ensure that every child can experience the joy of Christmas. Our 2025 participating locations included Greenville, Raleigh, Durham, Fayetteville and Wilmington.
In the weeks leading up to the event in late December, staff and volunteers took on the role of St. Nick’s helpers, collecting and organizing gift donations.
To distribute toys to the families, volunteers dressed in their jolly best to greet the children and hand over their wrapped presents.
This event always shows how important community is to our regional offices, and the communities really showed up this year. Take our Tar River regional office for example, who’s WwL event served 212 families and for a total of 500 children. They received 120 winter coats from Grand Knight Tom Nguyen and the St. Gabriel Church Knights of Columbus, ensuring the children would be Wrapped with Love (and Warmth!). This was in addition to Tar River’s usual donations from Toys for Tots, book donations from their local Barnes and Noble, and dental ‘Smile Bags’ assembled from three local dentists. Every regional location had ample support from their local churches, with the youth from St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother church assisting the Tar River office.
Across the region there were other great accomplishments, such as the164 families and 381 children in total that the Cape Fear region’s Wrapped with Love event served. Emergency Assistance Specialist Layla Perez reflected on this year’s event in the Cape Fear region, sharing that, “Our community’s generosity was overwhelming! We received so many donations that we were able to support families who couldn’t get into a Christmas program in time, as well as help case workers reaching out for last‑minute needs. Seeing that level of giving, that was the best part.”
Other highlights included the Sons of Solomon Motorcycle Club and local parishes donating gifts to our Fayetteville Regional Office, and the Knights of Columbus (Saint Matthew’s Durham, Council #13812) donating winter coats for children to the Durham Community Food Pantry. Thank you all for your work to share the true spirit of the season with families in need.
View a recap from some of the regional locations Wrapped with Love event on Facebook by clicking the link below:
Cape Fear: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1G2r38ce4j/
Greenville: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CVYv1on2o/
Fayetteville: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BmqNyTMs5/