PG’s Goodfellows Fund saw boost in donations for 2020
In a year of need, readers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette stepped up.
Donors gave $116,143 to the PG Charities Goodfellows Fund campaign for the 2020 season — up more than $37,000 from 2019, according to tallies released by the program last week.
The money goes toward the Marine Corps Reserve’s Toys for Tots effort in southern Allegheny County, including Pittsburgh. Supported through the Pittsburgh
Cares nonprofit, the program served 31,670 children in the 2020 holiday season, said Danielle Allison, a Toys for Tots volunteer coordinator. “We want to thank the community for their constant support,” Ms. Allison said. “Whether they gave gifts or time or even
interacting with us on social media — all of it was very helpful this year.”
Nationally, Toys for Tots delivered a record 20.2 million toys to 7.4 million lessfortunate children in 2020, the Virginia-based Toys for Tots Foundation said in a statement.
Best known for providing toys as gifts during the holiday season, the group partnered with the Good360 nonprofit to distribute some 2 million toys, games and books over the spring and summer to families affected by the COVID19 pandemic, according to the foundation.
As the holiday season approached, the national organization saw “a deficit of toys develop in the millions in November,” it said. A record number of corporate sponsors, along with hundreds of thousands of individuals, answered calls for help and made “significant donations,” the foundation said.
That support let the organization augment local toy drives with more than 8 million toys valued at more than $77 million, according to the foundation. Its pandemic challenges ranged from strong demand — driven by the economic downturn — to logistical changes in collecting and processing gifts.
Toys for Tots in southern Allegheny County adjusted in part by cutting large toydistribution events to ensure safe social distancing, Ms. Allison said. Participating nonprofits distributed the gifts on a smaller scale.
The local program’s toy distribution was down nearly 50% from about 61,000 in 2019.
“While the need was high, there was still a decrease in donations” overall, Ms. Allison said. “That’s not to say people weren’t generous, because they definitely were. It was just a hard year for most, so giving had to look a little different.”
Wish lists created through online retailer Amazon helped, she said. So did support from Post-Gazette readers and a supplement from the Toys for Tots Foundation, Ms. Allison said.
Volunteers worked 159 shifts to support the local effort, she added. While that was down from some 800 shifts in 2019, she said, organizers “totally understood” as many people sought to avoid potential COVID-19 exposure.
“We had maybe a tenth of the volunteer power that we normally do,” Ms. Allison said. “And to do as much as we were able to do is really great.”
The Post-Gazette has run the Goodfellows campaign since 1947. It accepts contributions throughout the year and acknowledges them in the newspaper during the holiday season. You 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 you can donate online at www.post-gazette.com/ goodfellows.