Ruby’s Engaged!

After a very lucrative bake sale of homemade banana bread and chocolate chip cookies, seven year old Ruby Steel and her mom, Caitlin, went shopping to buy items from the Bell Family Shelter wish list. (Read story here.)

Since then, Ruby enlisted her older brother, William, to help and the family showed up with another van load of donations – personal hygiene items, after-school snacks, twin bed sheet sets in an array of kid-friendly prints, and more – to help unhoused York County families in residence at the 30-day emergency shelter.

As the Steel family heard that plans were underway for a bigger, better family shelter, the cogs in Ruby’s head started turning again. She wanted to help create a space in the new shelter for kids to get comfy and explore stories in books. The idea of Ruby’s Reading Nook was born!

So this past December, Cait and Tim opened their home for a holiday open house as a fundraiser for Ruby’s Reading Nook. The guest of honor mingled among the adults as they enjoyed the charcuterie and desserts, and was later found fast asleep on a cozy chair still in her party dress.

A few weeks later, representatives of Bell’s community engagement team made arrangements with her parents to surprise Ruby on her 9th birthday with a special certificate of appreciation for her continuing efforts. Oh yes, and an engagement ring! *