Adam’s Angels Hosts Holiday Events for Hundreds of Homeless Guests

Once again this year, the nonprofit Adams Angels will brighten the Christmas holiday for hundreds of homeless guests with a festive event that includes a nourishing meal, live musical entertainment, gifts from Santa, a free marketplace of clothing and gear, and a warm, welcoming spirit.  

Led by real estate agents Adam McKaig and Melissa Borders, Adams Angels serves homeless individuals year-round. The all-volunteer nonprofit was formed in the early days of the pandemic and just keeps on serving. 

The entertainment for this year’s Christmas event is under wraps, but last year Kenny Loggins and Jackson Gillies gave heartwarming performances of Christmas songs, and in the past couple of years, Alan Parsons, Lois Mahalia, Jason Libs, and many more have performed. The event, at the Santa Barbara Veterans’ Memorial Building on Christmas Day from noon to 2 p.m., is open to anyone in the community. 

This year’s Thanksgiving event, also at the Veterans’ Memorial Building, was quite the production, with about 500 guests and 132 volunteers preparing and serving the meal. Some volunteers who weren’t on duty that day and didn’t have family in the area came as guests. According to Borders, the holiday events are just as much for the volunteers as anyone else. “It was really nice to serve them,” Borders added.

Homeless guests enjoyed shopping at the pop up shop on site, which featured racks of new clothing donated by Deckers, including fleece tops, hoodies, Hoka and Teva footwear, UGG wool-lined leather gloves, hats, socks, and backpacks.   

CARE4Paws volunteers were on hand in the courtyard to care for dogs, and even did nail trimmings, while their owners dined on turkey (350 pounds of turkey breast), mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and lots of pies.

For Christmas, Adams Angels is expecting a similar number of guests. Now that word has gotten out that the event is open to everyone, whether they live in Montecito or they are unsheltered, Borders related, they expect continued large numbers.

When asked what motivates them to put in the long hours to plan, prepare and host these events year after year, McKaig shared that the people they have gotten to know, both the homeless guests and the volunteers, have become his family. “I love my family and I want to keep nurturing and taking care of them for as long as I can.”  

In the morning before the event starts, when McKaig sees the line of guests stretching for blocks, he thinks, “wow, we have done it,” and Borders added, “and we want to do it again.”  Every day, McKaig reflects, “we wake up and ask what more can we do to help.”

When they hosted the first holiday events in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, the intent was that these were one-time events. But the experiences turned out to be so exhilarating, Borders related, that they wanted to keep doing it and to make it better each year. The gratitude from the hundreds of homeless guests and volunteers in a single day, Borders shared, gives one “a feeling you just want to keep having.”

For the Christmas meal, the nonprofit is seeking cookies from the community, which can be dropped off at the Veterans’ Memorial Building December 21 or 22 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. or on Christmas Day from 10 a.m. to noon. Monetary donations, of course, are welcome year round.

Adam’s Angels has no paid staff and receives no government funding or private grants. 

It relies on the community for donations. The nonperishable food Adams Angels distributes each week at eight locations to about 300 homeless individuals cost more than $1,000 per week. It would like to buy a van to replace the unreliable vehicle it uses for Costco runs and to enable it to shuttle guests to its events. McKaig picks up the tab when donations run low and noted that “if we had more money, we could do a lot more good.”

On Sunday, December 17, at The Red Piano, Jason Libs and friends are doing their annual John Lennon Tribute to benefit Adams Angels. There’s free admission with donations encouraged. 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

For more info about Adam’s Angels or to make a donation, go to https://www.adamsangels-sb.org.