Organizations that help families in need around the holidays

[mrudman]

May I suggest you also contact your local hospital and find out if one of the floors is adopting a family?

I work on an oncology floor, and each year we pick one of the families who has been recently (within the past year) had a parent diagnosed with cancer, and "adopt" them.

I love this idea because the family is never one that has the "entitlement" problem... they just are very down on their luck for that year. Most of the time, they've been too sick to be able to work, and our floor manager always approaches them about a month before Christmas to get ideas on what sizes of clothing the kids wear or what presents they would like.

 

[Cooky]

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[southern_redhead]

I have the opposite problem. My son wants to adopt a young child to make sure santa shows up at his house. My son only makes minimum wage so he can't adopt a family. My sister directed to a domestic violence shelter but they only do families. I told my son to just buy presents and donate to toys for tots but he wants to buy directly for a certain child.

Call a local school and speak to the guidance office. They should know of a child in need and could get a copy of the child's letter to Santa from the teacher. We have bought for kids at school before, it was very rewarding.

Edited: I see now that this was suggested, I just didn't read far enough! Anyway, to add to this we "adopted" a family of three kids from the school our kids go to. I asked the teachers for ideas and we bought items and then dropped them off with the mother. I never told my kids and she never told the kids who they were from (or who they were really from, she told them their dad won some money and sent them.) We didn't do it last year and they didn't get anything for Christmas I will be trying to pull together funds for them this year, seeing that little girl sad the day we came back from break and she couldn't tell about her Christmas broke my heart.

And, thumbs up to the person who said she bought exactly what the child asked for. I have no problem with buying off brand or clearance or whatever but would donate that to Toys for Tots or something. I wouldn't take a list asking for one thing and give them something approximating it. When we adopted the above family we asked my mom's Sunday School class to help fill three stockings. We suggested things like toothbrushes, coloring books, etc... One woman actually brought me a box with half used makeup, an old purse, and a set of cheap mittens. Needless to say I tossed them, bought good stuff myself, and won't EVER ask her for help again. What burns me up is this is a woman whose family owns a local company, by their own admission is worth "tons of money", and has a house with an indoor pool - she wouldn't even put out $20 on stocking stuffers! I tell myself, and would like to believe, that she had planned to do something nice but something happened and she couldn't so she pulled together "something" to contribute. Truthfully, though, she has an attitude of "if you are in need, take what you are given and be thankful." Very much the Scrooge.

 

[QVCshopper]

We always buy for a child through my husband's work. It's a larger company, and they get the kids info/wants from different organizations in our area. Try using google to find some; maybe your local TV station's website would have more info. I know there are many in our area (near Philly). Also, we give to the local food bank in our town. They provide Thanksgiving dinners and always accept food throughout the year. Our library and schools hold donations throughout the year for them, or you can give directly via money or goods. My DD's Daisy troop, for example, is collecting for a turkey dinner to donate. Good luck finding a charity -- many people need help right now! Oh, and my YMCA has a tree that you pick an item (or more) to buy for families. So, there are many ways to give.

 

[RangerPooh]

I think previous posters have made good suggestions. Some social services offices might be hard to get through due to automated systems, but check with churches, the Salvation Army, schools/school district, looks for the holiday trees with "wish list" tags, or consider contacting the Head Start preschool in your area. They might have an idea of who their families in need are.

For the poster who posted about their son wanting to "adopt" a child, have him look for the trees with tags or contact the school district and let them know what he wants to do.

 

[torinsmom]

Another thing that some people may not know about is Operation Christmas Child. They collect shoeboxes full of hygiene items, toys, books, etc and ship them all over the world to children in need. We always pack a few and put in a personal note for the child.

http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/OCC/Pack_A_Shoe_Box/

 

[burberryplaid]

I would contact a local food bank. For the holidays they often offer food & gifts/clothing for needy families.

If you are a person of faith, you may want to contact your place of worship as they often know of families in need. My church provides gifts to needy families through donations from our congregation.