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Couple Seeks To Unwrap Smiles With Donations

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By MEGAN HUSSEY, Tribune correspondent

Published: December 15, 2007

Updated: 12/14/2007 09:56 pm

Operation Unwrap A Smile is marking its second year of service with a wide-scale holiday campaign to help others.

The effort is led by ministers Herb and Stephanie Roshell, founders of the Inspirational Praise & Worship Center in Brandon. Today they're bringing donations for distribution by East Pasco Toys for Tots to the Land O' Lakes Community Center.

"Toys for Tots is in great need of donations this year, and we're making them the focus of our holiday giving efforts," Stephanie Roshell said.

The couple also plans to bring toiletries and toys to seven shelters for abused and runaway children.

"In total we'll be helping 263 children," she said.
Lending a hand are the Sunlake High School cheerleaders who, with coach Pennye Garcia's guidance, pitched in with Barbie dolls, balls, bats, lotions, hair accessories and other items.

"We brought the bags of gifts back to school and Herb and Stephanie came by in their truck to pick them up," Garcia said in a statement. "The girls had a good time and felt good to be able to help the less fortunate during the Christmas season."

And when the Roshells deliver those and other donations to the shelters, they'll bring more than material things.

"We don't just take gifts to the shelters," Stephanie Roshell said. "We build a rapport with the children that lasts all year along. We mentor them."

The Roshells often ask recipients to talk about themselves, and the children often reciprocate with short holiday performances or poetry/essay readings.

"In many cases, these kids' parents have deserted them," she said. "We're the ones who will try to be there for them, to cheer them on."

That's just what happened recently at the Florida Sheriff's Youth Villa (formerly the Girls Villa) in Bartow. There, the couple met a 17-year-old single mom who, following a suicide attempt, gave up her baby temporarily.

"The child will become a ward of the state for a year while the young lady finishes her program at the sheriff's youth ranch and puts her life together," Stephanie Roshell said. "She asked us to put together a package of baby blankets for her newborn and to give one blanket to her, so she can remember her baby boy.

"We made the blankets a gift from the mother to her son."

Also this Christmas, Operation Unwrap A Smile will help a Dade City mother who needs food, clothes and presents for her four children, newborn to 4 years old.

The folks at the charitable organization are accepting donations from the community for those and other efforts, including a distribution for the homeless on Dec. 22.

"We'll be sending three teams to various parts of Tampa, like Hillsborough and Nebraska avenues, and downtown at the courthouse," Stephanie Roshell said. "We want to give them backpacks and duffel bags with canned goods, hand sanitizer, small blankets, $5 McDonald's gift cards, gloves and caps. Right now there are so many people with so many needs and we want to help all year around," she said. "We want to be community supportive. And during the holidays, we want to bring smiles to the faces of those in need."

OPERATION UNWRAP A SMILE

COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTIONS: The group's mission, as stated on its Web site, "is to make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves, regardless of age, sex, religion or race."

Founders Herbert and Stephanie Roshell say they have a passion for inspiring and mentoring young people to mature into servants of God and to people all over the world.

"Our goal is to channel the children/youth in a positive direction by imparting quality values and high self-esteem, so they are able to succeed," the mission statement says. "Operation Unwrap A Smile's secondary mission is to help those in our communities become strong individuals which makes strong families, strong schools, strong communities and eventually, strong cities."

A LITTLE BACKGROUND: The Roshells started Operation Unwrap A Smile in November 2006. He's a plant manager at Land O' Lakes High School and a church elder and founder of the Inspirational Praise & Worship Center in Brandon. She's an ordained minister and licensed evangelist who leads the center's Women's Ministry and Evangelism Team.

HOW TO HELP: Donations of toiletries and toys are welcome for abused and runaway children at shelters throughout Pasco County. And items such as fast-food gift cards, backpacks and toiletries are being collected for distribution Dec. 22 to the homeless.

For details, call (813) 748-4775, e-mail operationunwrapasmile@hotmail .com, visit www.operationunwrapa smile.org or write to P.O. Box 2501, Land O' Lakes FL 34639.

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