A Season of Giving – Dec. 24, 2008

By MJ Logan

We are all too familiar with the commercialized Christmas holiday season. Each year it starts earlier and earlier; the promotions, the sales, the non-stop in-your-face advertising telling us to spend more and more. It's so easy to become cynical when every business is using the season to sell, sell, sell.

Almost every business that is. Big Sammy's Hot Dogs in The Grove of Elgin is just one exception to the rule.

Sam Fallico, owner and operator of Big Sammy's Hot Dogs in Elgin and Elk Grove Village, sponsors a giving tree during the Christmas Season. This year, wish list donations went to the Larkin Center in Elgin, an agency assisting adults with mental illness and providing housing and education for at-risk young people.

The declining economy hasn't been helping Big Sammy's, and it wasn't helping the giving tree either. With about 40 names still on the wish list and Christmas fast approaching, Big Sammy stepped up with his big heart. He offered a $15.00 certificate good for a rib dinner to anyone who brought in something for the giving tree.

It didn't take long for Big Sammy to give out 40 coupons and for 40 gifts to appear for the Larkin Center wish list. Elgin, it appears, has it's own Santa Claus. Sam felt the average gift donation was about $20.00.

Sure, Sam could have told the Larken Center that people just weren't bringing in the gifts. With business down it would have been easy to just sigh and not worry about people he didn't know receiving gifts. That just isn't Big Sammy. With a heart as big as he is, Sammy opened the way to not only give of himself, but to let others give as well.