‘Trying to make sure the children have ... a happy Christmas’
Before the pandemic began, the Ethnan Temple Seventh-day Adventist Church of Wilkinsburg typically served 75 to 125 families a month in its food pantry distribution.
Since the pandemic began, the figure has been more like “350 to 500 a month,” said Pastor Jerome Hurst. Church members are seeing growing needs, including people losing jobs and parents and grandparents trying to do their jobs as they monitor children studying from home during the pandemic.
And just as such needs are greater these days, so are the needs of families for Christmas gifts for their children. As it has for the past several years, Ethnan Temple is participating in the Marines’ Toys for Tots distribution.
“It has hit families hard, so throughout the COVID, we’ve been providing food and things for families,” said Pastor Hurst. “We said we need to make sure that children have some sort of Christmas, or aid the parents in making Christmas for them.”
The church has signed up families for gift distribution from the
list of those who take part in the food distribution, with more names provided by the nearby elementary school, Pittsburgh Faison K-5.
In past years, the church set up the gifts in a manner similar to a store, where the recipients could come in and select items. This time, the gifts will be tailored for each family by church workers and put in packages. Families will pick up the packages at prescheduled times.
Families will also get a food basket with ingredients for a Christmas meal, Pastor Hurst said.
In addition to the toys provided by Toys for Tots, “we are supplementing those from our outreach department so the kids have three to four nice gifts under the tree for each child,” he said.
“We’re just trying to make sure the children have some sort of a happy Christmas,” Pastor Hurst said.
So is the PG Charities Goodfellows Fund campaign, which raises money for the Marine Corps Reserve’s Toys for Tots program.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has been running Goodfellows since 1947. In partnership with the Pittsburgh Cares nonprofit, which manages the volunteer side, the campaign raised more than $79,000 from readers last year — enough to buy lots of toys for struggling families.
Post-Gazette readers can make a tax-deductible donation using the coupon that appears with this story and sending it to Post-Gazette Goodfellows, Box 590, Pittsburgh, PA 15230, or by donating online at www.post-gazette.com/ goodfellows. A tradition of Goodfellows is that the PG acknowledges every contribution in the newspaper.