'God provided' for Christmas-based programs

Considering turmoil the COVID-19 pandemic has caused throughout the region, state and nation, it wouldn't be surprising to hear nonprofits striving to provide Christmas for those in need struggled.

It's even less surprising to hear Cole County stepped up when asked and exceeded those nonprofits' expectations.

Hope for Christmas is a nonprofit whose intent is to provide assistance during the season to families who have suffered a health or other crisis in the past six to eight months. Generally referred by organizations, doctors, clinics, hospitals, churches or other professional facilities, the in-need families may have lost a parent or child or have someone who is suffering with illness. The nonprofit helps the families once.

It also selects seniors to adopt, Executive Director Vicki Bullock said.

Hope for Christmas only asks for donations during the holiday season, Bullock said.

"We had more financial donations this year than any other. This was our largest financial donations year," she said. "We were more blessed this year."

The donations allow the nonprofit to enhance the gifts, buy supplies and provide other services.

"We did much better than I thought we would," Bullock said. "We helped 327 families and 386 seniors."

The nonprofit allows people to "adopt" their families and seniors - buying gifts for each senior or each person in the family.

The adopters return the gifts to Hope for Christmas, where volunteers verify they are age- and gender-appropriate and wrap them.

The nonprofit extended time allotted for wrapping gifts this year so volunteers could practice social distancing.

Pickup or deliveries were different, too, Bullock said. For example, the nonprofit tried not to go into people's homes.

While some of the organization's seniors live on their own, many live in nursing facilities, she said.

"We let them know that we were coming," she said of the seniors at home. "We did not go into the house or have contact with them."

The nonprofit delivered gifts to its clients in nursing facilities but left them with the people running those facilities for disbursement.

"Touching people personally - I think that's why we had such a good turnout for the whole thing," Bullock said. "It was unbelievable - the people that came out of the woodwork for us this year."

Despite having fewer bell-ringers for The Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign, people were generous this season, said Lori Benson, director of community relations and volunteers at The Salvation Army.

The campaign is the international nonprofit's largest annual fundraiser. It helps fund programs to feed the hungry throughout the year.

"A lot of people stepped up for online donations versus what we do with the kettles," Benson said. "Jefferson City is a giving community. Jefferson City has always been generous and eager to help."

Salvation Army Capt. Sarah Windell said there was some anxiety as the season approached. It was unclear how the annual Toy Shop or coat drive would be conducted at the Center of Hope in Jefferson City.

"We were trying to do the new COVID-19 procedures. We were trying to figure out how to help people without exposing them to COVID-19," Windell said.

The Toy Shop, she said, became a contactless pickup. Staff packaged appropriate toys for recipients and took them out to families' cars.

"While it was a different way of doing it, it was very well-received," she said. "People enjoyed what they got. We think it may be something we want to continue in the future."

Organizers of the toy drive worried they wouldn't receive enough toys.

Never underestimate the generosity of the community.

"All of our angels were taken off our angel tree," Windell said. "Each family was blessed with the amount of toys they wanted."

The coat drive was another kettle of fish.

It, too, had to be operated differently than in the past. Like previous years, it started before weather got really cold.

So, anytime someone applied for the toy shop or other services, staff told them about the availability of the free coats, Windell said. Staff had to minimize how many people were in the building at any one time. But they could come and get coats.

"All of the fear and nervousness we had in our heads and in our minds - with kettle, Toy Shop, coat drives - none of that happened," she said. " God provided, and we had a great Christmas season."

Because so many of the Samaritan Center's volunteers are seniors, churches didn't expect to be able to help with adoptions as extensively as they had for previous years, Operations Manager Ben DeFeo said.

Organizers of the annual adoption program at the Jefferson City-based center went into the season expecting the challenges. So they tightened up the qualifications - on things like children's ages - for the nonprofit's adoption program.

The center pre-bagged toys (based on age and gender) rather than let families come in and choose (like shopping), DeFeo said. However, families also had to go to the center to pick up their Christmas gifts in a drive-thru style.

"We bought quite a bit going into (the season)," DeFeo said. "We didn't want to get caught (short). Throughout the season, we still had toy donors coming in and dropping stuff off."

And the nonprofit's food pantry remained busy, he said.

"We had a lot of families coming through for food over the last two weeks we were open," he said. "We really got slammed that last week. It was a heavy load every day."

The Samaritan Center closes for a couple of weeks at the end of each year. Its last pantry was offered Dec. 17. The center reopened this past Tuesday.

"The first week or week and half after we open back up is busy," DeFeo said. "Then it tails down for a month or so. When the weather's cold, you don't get as many people."

Toys for Tots relies on the generosity of folks who work at the five state agencies that support the nonprofit every year. But most of the staff at those agencies are working from home, said Harold Faughn, the nonprofit's Cole County organizer.

Faughn said the agencies annually provide about 54 percent of the toys the nonprofit receives.

It wasn't just the state agencies, he said. Other businesses were in the same boat.

But businesses that support the program pushed to have donation boxes at their doors.

One organization donated 25 bicycles and numerous toys to the program, which again served more than 1,200 children.

"The Cole County government - wow! They tripled what they normally do," Faughn said. "That made us successful. They all pulled together with what they had."

One woman who normally volunteers for Toys for Tots, he said, found the situation had turned on her. She came in to receive toys for her children this year.

"She was in tears," Faughn said. "I told her, 'Don't worry about that. All those years you helped out, and it's coming back.'"

All those people in the community, Faughn said, have one thing in mind - to help children. It's a "community outreach program that everyone's involved in."

"I've never wanted to mark a child off the list," he said. "That's the most terrible thing to have to do. I'm just so happy to have all of us in this community."