Volunteers keep fund working
The Spokesman-Review launched its annual Christmas Fund charity Friday, but dozens of volunteers have been working behind the scenes for months on projects ranging from soliciting items for gift bags to sorting thousands of children’s books.
The Christmas Fund asks for donations from area residents between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The money raised buys Christmas fixings for needy families. Food vouchers for a holiday dinner and new toys are distributed at the Christmas Bureau in December at the Spokane County Fair and Expo Center.
The goal this year is $485,000, the amount that bureau organizers anticipate will be needed to pay for this holiday gift to the area’s poor. The donors and the amount donated will be reported daily in The Spokesman-Review beginning Monday. Donors who wish to remain anonymous should indicate their wishes on their donation check or in a note enclosed with the donation.
The Spokesman-Review partners with Catholic Charities and the Volunteers of America in operating the bureau. Karen Orlando, volunteer coordinator at Catholic Charities, organizes the many volunteer projects needed for this effort. The bureau will be open daily except Sundays between Dec. 7 and Dec. 20. Bureau organizers anticipate about 10,000 poor families will come to the fairgrounds for food vouchers and about 17,000 toys will be distributed to needy children.
About 200 volunteers are scheduled to cover 900 shifts at the bureau, working in the toy distribution rooms, the child care area, checking identification, unpacking toys and stocking toy rooms and inputting recipient data into computers.
While volunteers will gather to set up the operation on Dec. 5 at the fairgrounds, a number of groups have been working since spring on the details needed to make the Christmas Bureau a success.
Nearly two dozen women from the service group Assistants spent about six hours on Nov. 15 stuffing 2,000 paper bags with an assortment of small items. The gift bags will be given to Christmas Bureau recipients who live alone and would otherwise receive just a $15 food voucher.
Orlando said that organizers felt these single recipients should leave with some small Christmas gift as well as the food voucher.
“For many single people, this is the only gift they will receive,” said Mike Reilly, volunteer chairman of the bureau. “They live alone and many don’t have family support or the economic means to have a little brightness at the holidays.”
A committee solicited items from area businesses.
Among the gift bag donations were toothbrushes from Englund Dentistry, Patterson Dental Supply, Washington Dental Service and dentist Mary Kay Smith; a thousand gripper socks from Owens & Minor medical supply company, 600 golf hats from Brian Ladyman, notepads from Dejarnette Sales, gift certificates from McDonald’s, snack bags from Albertson’s and winter gloves from Wal-Mart.
“This is just one of the many service projects that we do each year,” said Assistants president Connie Howard. “We ate lunch and within 10 minutes of finishing, we had an assembly line going stuffing the gift bags. This is a well-oiled machine.”
The gift bags for single recipients were new last year and Orlando asked Assistants members to help stuff the bags. “Before they finished last year they had already asked to do the same project this year,” Orlando said. “And they have already committed for next year.”
The 2,000 brown lunch bags were distributed to a number of area schools prior to stuffing. Students at the following schools decorated and colored the bags with pictures of Christmas stockings, snow scenes, Santa and other seasonal fare: All Saints Catholic School, Regal, Finch, South Pines, Hamblen, Adams, Greenacres, Hutton, Grant, Sheridan and Pratt elementary schools, and Oakesdale High school.
Some volunteer groups started work on Christmas Bureau projects during the summer. Retired teachers from the ADK sorority, for example, sorted more than 40,000 books that had been donated to the Volunteers of America. They selected children’s books and grouped them by age appropriateness. Each needy child will leave the bureau with a book.
Another volunteer committee gathered used books that remained after the Friends of the Library sales at Argonne, Spokane Valley, North Spokane and Liberty Lake libraries earlier this year. The committee members sorted through the used books and chose about 2,500 adult-level books that will be given out the bureau.
A committee of volunteers fond of caroling contacted area schools and scheduled student carolers to sing every day at the Christmas Bureau.
“About 50 to 75 volunteers have been working on various projects since spring that are behind the scenes of the bureau,” said Orlando.
The holiday charity depends almost entirely on volunteers, and donated services and goods. Small compensation is given to the Bureau coordinator and to translators hired to help recipients who only speak Russian or related Central European languages, Spanish, or Vietnamese.
Of course the charity would not be possible without the generous financial donations of the community. Donations of all amounts are welcome toward providing this community Christmas gift to its needy.