ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
Mary Abramson sorts through baskets. The assembling of more than 500 baskets is scheduled to finish this week.
By GAYLA CAWLEY
SWAMPSCOTT — In the past 15 years, Joel and Mary Abramson have provided approximately 8,000 families with holiday gift baskets filled with essential items.
“You get a tremendous satisfaction from seeing the joy these bring to so many people,” Mary Abramson said. “There’s so many needy people out there. We all have so much. It gives all of us great pleasure to give back.”
The Abramsons said each basket has 25 to 40 items, which they estimated adds up to about 250,000 product samples given away to schools, organizations and charities, with a value well in excess of $1 million. Much is donated from vendors Joel Abramson has worked with through his time in sales and marketing.
Mary and a group of her female friends, who call themselves the Basket Babes, start putting together the packages in November. Earlier work, which includes unpacking and sorting the materials starts in September. The assembling of more than 500 baskets is scheduled to finish this week, and they will be delivered next week. The delivery is usually carried out by the husbands.
The bulk of the packages are given away to organizations in Lynn, Salem, Beverly, Marblehead and Boston, such as Girls Inc., KIPP Schools in Lynn and Boston, HAWC, Lifebridge and Pine Street Inn.
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Mary said the project started after she began wondering how to get rid of all of the product samples in her home. When Joel Abramson, who owns Flagship Travel in Marblehead, owned J&J Sales and Marketing, he would receive cosmetic health and beauty samples from vendors his company worked with.
Mary said she had the idea to donate the products as gift baskets to charities. In the first year, the couple put together 25 to 30 baskets. She said her husband also began reaching out to manufacturers he worked with, asking if they would like to donate to the charity project.
The bulk of the items still come from vendors and manufacturers the Abramsons know, as well as some of the couple’s own money. Joel’s company J&J merged with a larger company and he now works with sales and marketing company Johnson O’Hare (JOH) to enlarge one of their divisions. That gives him access to their vendors as well.
Baskets contain utilitarian items such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, and shampoo. Baskets for women also contain cosmetics and those for men include a hardcover book, earbuds, a T-shirt and socks.
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Their efforts have not gone unnoticed. The Boston Celtics recognized Mary as a “Hero Among Us” in 2012. The couple also received some recent publicity in The Item’s sister publication, 01907 magazine for their efforts. Since that article, Joel said a friend of his, who owns a giftwear company reached out. Joel spent Monday morning in Norwood filling up his car with items his friend donated.
Joel said the article has led to people who work for companies calling the couple offering to get rid of extra items they have. He said it’s also served as a reminder for their friends who own companies and knew that the Abramsons did the charity project, but had forgotten. He said it’s been productive and satisfying in that a lot of goodwill has been generating, which leads to more donated materials.
He said there’s also been more requests this year from local schools and organizations for gift baskets. Giving away the packages is emotional, Joel said, as the couple continues to appreciate the effect the donated materials have on people’s lives. There’s no end in sight for the project.
“We can’t say no so we’ll do it as long as we can,” Joel said.
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley