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Unionville Couple Holiday Angels at HHC

After raising five children and doting on 12 grandchildren, you’d think Paul and Pat Robotham, of Unionville, would be long finished with diapers and baby formula and scrambling to collect the perfect Christmas toy.

But in the days before Christmas, Pat can often be found rushing through Wal-Mart to pick-up a few last-minute gifts that a group of children and their parents have come to depend on.

For years, the Robothams, now both in their 70s, have been holiday angels to a growing number of families who receive services from the Hispanic Health Council.

Each year, Paul loads the bed of his pick-up truck with scores of brightly wrapped gifts donated by fellow parishioners at St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Church in Unionville. The couple help to coordinate a giving tree at the church, which also benefits other organizations.

The Robothams create tags listing the names, ages and wishes of two dozen families, many of whom receive services through the Hispanic Health Council’s Comadrona program. The program provides home visits and support to pregnant women and their infants to help give families the best possible start.

Picking tags from the tree, parishioners purchase and wrap the gifts in time for the Robothams to deliver them to the Hispanic Health Council’s Hartford building a few days before Christmas.

Gifts have included a new bicycle, complete with a helmet; a toy kitchen, a remote-control car with plenty of batteries, warm comforters and bedding, gift cards for the adults and rolling shopping carts so families who do not own cars can bring home groceries from neighborhood markets. The shopping carts were Pat’s idea.

“They haul all of this stuff around and have no way to get to the grocery store,’’ Pat said.

Pat called the couple’s work with the Hispanic Health Council a privilege. “There is such a need,’’ she said.