EDWARDSBURG — Huddling together to fight off the cold of winter day, several members of the Buchanan Blue Star Mothers wait expectantly for a guest in the back of a Walmart parking lot in Niles on Dec. 21. After spending a few minutes pulling grocery bags and unidentified boxes from the back of their van, a silver vehicle pulls up next to them and smiles cross their faces.

“There they are,” said Tammy Sebatsy, a member of the Blue Star Mothers. “We haven’t met them yet.”

From the silver vehicle, a man helps his young son into a wheelchair before going to greet the women waiting for him. The women then got to work helping the man, Richard Lawson, a veteran living Edwardsburg, load the bags and boxes into the trunk of his car.

“I’m really thankful for this,” Lawson said. “This means so much.”

The Buchanan Blue Star Mothers is a regional branch of the Blue Star Mothers of America, an organization that provides support to mothers of children in the U.S. armed forces. The group ecently organized donations for Lawson and his 10-year-old son Jacob, so that they could enjoy their Christmas.

Donations included more than $200 in cash and gift card donations from local individuals and organizations, an Xbox and games, a transfer bench for Jacob’s wheelchair and groceries to make a Christmas meal.

The Blue Star Mothers worked with many area individuals and organizations, including the Knights of Columbus and the Buchanan Scarecrow Charities to provide the donations to the Edwardsburg family.

Lawson said that he is grateful for all the work the Blue Star Mothers put into procuring the donations for him and his son, and that he would not have been able to provide the Christmas he wanted for his son without the help of the group.

Lawson is a disabled veteran who suffers from spinal injuries, and his son suffers klippel trenaunay weber syndrome, a condition that affects the development of blood vessels and soft tissues and a lymphedemic wound, which has been hard to heal and required skin grafts. Lawson said that these disabilities have left the pair in and out of hospitals and have debilitated their way of life.

Lawson said that he contacted the Blue Star Mothers to help him this Christmas because he has received gift cards from them in the past, and hoped that they would be able to put him in touch with services to help his family this season.

“Before, I never used to ask for help. My pride was too big for that. But, you know, sometimes you have to. I’m a single parent on a fixed income. It just gets tough sometimes. … I’m in a tight spot right now with my son’s medical issues and I have medical issues myself, so I thought I would look it up, and I found a local chapter,” Lawson said. “Bless their hearts, they have helped me so much. It means the world to me that they did this. It lets you know that there are still some good people in the world. I wish more people knew about these resources.”

Sebatsy said that the Blue Star Mothers were happy to help out Lawson and his son, saying that it what the organization is all about.

“We organized this because it is the right thing to do,” Sebatsy said. “You hear so many things about veterans having a difficult time. We want to do everything we can to help the veterans who put their lives on the line to defend their country, so when we hear of one who needs help, we do everything we can.”

Though she had never met Lawson before giving him the donations in the Walmart parking lot, Sebatsy said that seeing how happy the gifts made him and his son melted her heart.

“This man spent 10 and half years defending our country, and he needed help, so it was like ‘yes, we need to do everything we can to help them after everything he has done,’” she said.

The Buchanan chapter of the Blue Star Mothers will continue to fundraise so that they can continue to help veterans like Lawson year-round, Sebatsy said.

“This is what we do,” Sebatsy said. “It’s the least anyone can do after all [veterans] have done for us,” she said.