SUPPORT NEEDED

CADCOM’s Holiday Sharing program in need of businesses, individual donors

NORRISTOWN»More and more Montgomery County businesses are encouraging their employees to play Santa for CADCOM’s Holiday Sharing program so that low and moderate income families can enjoy a nice Christmas.

But with the number of benefactors not quite where it needs to be this year, individuals and businesses alike may need a gentle nudge in a Yuletide direction.

“We’re truly grateful when folks are committed to helping others but we have a huge waiting list of families who need to be ‘adopted,’ and we’ve been taking applications since the beginning of November,” noted Heather Lewis, director of resource development for CADCOM. “We can only go as fast as the donors that we have and we’re in the process of emailing out information and updating our database.”

The way it works is that CADCOM, which took over the giftgiving program from Community Housing Services in 2013, requires beneficiaries— who can be small or large families or seniors — to fill out applications and then it matches them with the generous people interested in shopping for Christmas gifts for the families.

Donors are a diverse group, but they do have one thing in common: Armed with vital information, such as the genders and ages of their adopted family members or senior individuals, and of course, the essential wish lists, they love to hit the stores.

“Yes, our donors love to shop,” Lewis said, laughing, adding that it’s more and more common to find groups pooling their resources and working together in adopting families.

“You can definitely be a part of group while not necessarily having a lot of money to adopt a family yourself. You can designate what size family you want to adopt, whether it be a single parent with a couple of children — whatever you believe your budget can support.”

When it comes to businesses, the Holiday Sharing begins and ends with the employees who choose to take on the responsibility, Lewis explained.

“It’s usually a staff person who takes the lead, so it’s not necessarily the business itself, it’s the employees of the business that support the program,” she allowed. “Usually it’s an individual that hears about the program and wants to help and they end up coordinating the of