NEW HAVEN >> City public works employee Honda Smith grew up in poverty and recalls vividly how her mother walked through snow and sleet during the Christmas season -- her six youngest children in tow -- to shop at Goodwill and Salvation Army so they would have something under the tree.Little did Smith or her mother realize those Herculean efforts -- as well as Smith's life-altering experience at a Catholic Church -- would someday impel her to pay it forward to thousands of other children.