Volunteers put family first
Adopt-A-Family playing Santa for nearly 1,000 area families, 2,000 kids
WOONSOCKET — The Adopt-A-Family crew was back at the Elks Hall at 380 Social St. this week while managing a gift collection and pick-up operation helping 951 local families have a better Christmas this year.
In all, 1,943 children benefited from the program serving Woonsocket families in need by matching them with donors who provide on average $175 to $200 worth of Christmas gifts, clothing and other needed items per child.
The work completed at the Elks Hall is part of an annual drive beginning in September, Debbie Mitchell of Cumberland, a member of the Adopt-A-Family board of directors and treasurer for the organization, explained.
“We starting taking donoations in September and donors start coming in at that time, too,” Mitchell said.
The applications are collected by the Community Care Alliance and then forwarded to
the Adopt-A-Family board for review. Applicants must be city residents and show proof of residency, utility bills or housing receipts as part of the review process, according to Mitchell.
Families receiving support must fall within 125 percent of the federal poverty guideline, or approximately a total income of $30,000 for a family of four, according to Adopt-A-Family’s qualifying guides.
After accepting families, the next step is matching a family with a donor based on the number of children a donor is seeking to sponsor.
Once the donors have basic information on what they need to provide, it is then time for shopping and wrapping. All the gifts acquired are new and must be wrapped before being bagged and identified for a particular recipient by an assigned number, according to Mitchell.
The whole process heads to a conclusion when Adopt-A-Family arrives at the Elks Hall for distribution week, she said.
The week started on Sunday with setup and the first round of gift dropoffs, and then continued through Thursday.
The program benefited from three large corporate donors again this year as well as many individual donors, Mitchell said.
Fidelity Investments in Smithfield brought in gifts for 355 children, CVS Health in Woonsocket and Cumberland turned over gifts for 285 children and Deloitte Accounting in Boston gave gifts for 155 children, she said.
As the presents arrived at the Elks Hall, the recipient families were notified it was time to come and pick them up under the next phase of the distribution.
The Kryptmen Motorcycle Club of Woonsocket was back again this year helping to direct traffic in and out of the parking lot and loading and unloading when needed.
Adopt-A-Family’s regular volunteers, about 20 people in all, were also back filling out four-hour shifts from 8 in the morning until 8 at night on the distribution days.
Despite the work, the volunteers never tire of the task of making kids happy.
“I love it,” Mitchell said. “I’ve been doing this for 10 years and as a board member for two years and I will be back next year for sure,” she said.
Laura Hunt of Lincoln has been on Adopt-A-Family’s board for two years but, like many of the volunteers, started out as a donor with the organization now 20 years ago. “I think it went very well this year,” Hunt said while pointing to the support the organization received in meeting the needs of 951 city families.
The distribution went smoothly through Thursday, when a power utility pole repair on Social slowed up the final round of distributions that day.
Sue Rennie of Woonsocket said she also became involved with Adopt-A-Family years ago as a donor and now enjoys seeing how people are helped by the program.
“It is nice to be able to help, but it is also sad to see there are people who work so hard and yet are still struggling to make ends meet for their families,” she said.
Rennie said she met a single dad this year who is providing for his four boys ages 2 to 7 and turned to Adopt-A-Family for help with Christmas.
“He seemed like the happiest person and was doing everything he could do to provide for his family while working two jobs,” she said. But he wasn’t able to provide the extras like Christmas gifts, and that was where Adopt-A-Family stepped in, she said.
“The one thing that I have seen over the years is that there are more and more people who are working, who are employed but still can’t provide everything for their families,” she said. They have to pay for housing and food, and then some things have to be left aside, she noted.
This year, Rennie said a local family signed up for Adopt-A-Family’s assistance and had a local address but by the time the distribution came around, they were living at the city’s homeless shelter.
The fact Adopt-A-Family can help gives its volunteers a good feeling, according to Rennie.
“This is my Christmas before Christmas,” she said. “This is why I have been doing this for 28 years, to see all the goodness out there in people,” she said.