Their faces light up; their day, week or even their year has just been made. What’s better than getting what you want? Giving what someone else wants.
When you kick the ‘what’s in it for me’ you’ll soon find the feeling you get is a gift in itself. It’s a gift that lifts the corners of your mouth and puts a twinkle in your eyes and it’s called joy.
Collectively putting on its Santa Hat, the Berman Automotive Group spent this holiday season hosting different charity toy drives to bring a little joy to those in need around the Chicago area.
Both Infiniti Chicago and Star Nissan decided to do their part with the addition of the Angel Tree, while Mid City Nissan put up their Toys for Tots box. Mid City Subaru, at the same time launched their Share The Love event which donates 250$ to the charity of the customers choice after they purchase a car.
As December arrived, Star Nissan in Niles put up its evergreen next to menorah and started to celebrated a bipartisan holiday season. While the tree was decked out with trimmings, it wasn’t quite complete until the Angel Tree tags were carefully placed. Made from simple paper, these tags carried with them a huge weight: the Christmas wish of a child. They didn’t wish for anything flashy, nothing out of this world was mentioned. No need to orbit anything further than the Wal-Mart ™ toy aisle to fill these simple desires.
Matt picks the perfect tag from the Angel Tree.
Wanting to reach out to children in need, some employees at Star Nissan decided to take the donations into their own hands.
Irfan Kaplanovic, a phone representative at Star Nissan took two tags from the tree and quietly sat back down at his desk. The next day he walked in with a LEGO™ set for a boy and some sort of pink, painted crab toy that doesn’t make sense to adults for a girl.“I don’t know, this is what the card said she wanted,” he said with a laugh after a fellow coworker asked what exactly the crab toy was.
While we may not understand why this particular toy was called upon we can understand the magic in the holidays for children, and it’s the magic that Irfan helped restore for this child with this simple crab toy. Dana Wiora, also a phone representative at Star Nissan skimmed over the tags while admiring the decorations, when she noticed a tag that seemed to be destined for her. “I have a little girl myself and this tag I saw was for a girl who’s the same age as my daughter. Not only that, she wanted the same toy as my daughter,” she explains. “I just had to take the tag.”
While most chose to give toys to the tree tots, Matt Sanfelippo VP of Commerce for the Berman Auto Group decided to take a tag with clothing as an optional gift. Sure, toys are nice but clothing- especially winter garb like a hat and gloves are vital for kids in the Midwest. With four girls plus a female cat at home, Matt decided to pluck a tag from the tree specifically for a boy.
“It will be fun to finally shop for a boy,” said Matt as he looked down at the tag.
Matt decided to take a trip to Dick’s Sporting Goods™ which is located a short distance from Star Nissan to pick up a shirt, hat and gloves as the requested on the tag.
Upon arrival, shopping for a 10 year old boy proved to be a bit more difficult for Matt than he had expected. Poking through the aisles Matt appeared to be on a different planet- one that wasn’t ruled completely by estrogen.
Just as he was about to give up, he noticed that the quarterback for the Chicago Bears™ Jay Cutler was in the building for a meet-and-greet. Matt was then inspired to pick up a Chicago Bears shirt and soon the perfect hat and gloves followed proving that the universe smiles- if only just a bit- upon those who try to spread a little bit of joy in the world.
Happy Holidays from The Berman Automotive Group!
Jay Cutler greets fans
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Berman’s Auto Group owns four premiere new and used car dealerships in Chicago: Mid City Nissan, Star Nissan, Mid City Subaru and Berman’s Infiniti of Chicago.
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