OTHELLO — Sixty Othello children had a better Christmas this year, thanks to the ladies of Beta Lambda.

Members of the women’s service organization took gifts to families at Guadalupe Haven, the low-income housing complex owned by Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington. This is the third year the organization has brought gifts to Guadalupe Haven, Beta Lambda member Trudy Doolittle wrote in an email to the Columbia Basin Herald.

Guadalupe Haven manager Maria Guzman said a representative of Catholic Charities put her in touch with Beta Lambda.

“She took me to explain to them a little bit about my families here,” Guzman said. “How they work, what are the (family’s) limitations. And (the members) liked it and wanted to come and see a little bit more. I think they enjoy bringing the presents and my families are so happy when they receive those little things.”

“The Guadalupe Haven manager provides us with a list of children in need, and so we want to be able to help out and make a child’s life a little bit better at Christmas time,” said member Suzanne Palmiero. “We don’t know the names of families. All we know is a child’s age, gender and which apartment they’re in, and we label our gifts that way.”

Guzman said she distributes the presents herself to the families, most of whom are farm workers and on tight budgets during the winter.

“If they come to my office to pay the rent or something, I say, ‘Hey, Santa, left something here for you guys’ and I give it to them. Or if they don’t come, and I call and they don’t answer, I go and take it door by door.”

Beta Lambda is a chapter of Beta Sigma Phi, a nationwide women’s organization. The Greek letters of the name stand for the Greek words for life, learning and friendship, Palmiero explained. Although the name makes Beta Sigma Phi sound like a college sorority, she added, it’s not college based.

“I know a lot of people think that,” she said. “No, we come from all walks of life and educational backgrounds.”

Beta Lambda, which numbers 19 members, meets every two weeks and meetings usually include some sort of educational component, she said.

“It can be on any topic,” she said. “We have guest speakers; we’re learning something new or more in-depth. It could be about a book, it could be about somebody who traveled to Germany, it could be cancer prevention. There’s a wide variety of topics, but the idea is to be able to educate one another.”

Besides the educational meetings, Beta Lambda takes on service projects both on its own and in conjunction with the two other branches of Beta Sigma Phi in Othello, Palmiero said.

“We’ve done things like Shop with a Cop, the food bank,” she said. “This year we gave money to the Othello cancer support group.”

The service committee hasn’t planned out all the chapter’s service projects for 2025, Palmiero said, but Guadalupe Haven will certainly be one of them.

“Most of us don’t have little children anymore,” Palmiero said. “So it’s really kind of fun to be able to shop for a 6-year-old boy and figure out what he might like.”

“When I knocked on the door … some of the moms told me, ‘Oh, thank you so much. This Christmas, we weren’t going to receive anything,’” Guzman said.