Aid workers say holiday donations trail needs

Officials urge pledges during year
Rebecca Wagner, executive director of Community Ministry of Montgomery County, Md., also has seen the need for emergency aid growing among the working poor.

"Before they were cobbling together three and four jobs to make ends meet," Wagner said. "Now that utility bill is a backbreaker."

She's been encouraging donors to make pledges beyond the holiday season — for instance for utility bills and rent next year.

"Toys and bags of oranges only go so far when you can't keep your heat on," Wagner said. But, she adds, families always appreciate the help at the holidays, too.

"All of it helps," she said.

Considering that individual donors represent about three-quarters of all charitable contributions, it means the last few months of giving in a year are critical, said Albert Ruesga of The Meyer Foundation, which funds aid organizations in Washington, D.C., and beyond.

"The giving that happens around the holiday season is really the lifeblood of many organizations that serve our poorest communities," he said.

Firms pledge donations, food
Corporate donations are also key.

Wal-Mart recently announced that it would donate 50 truckloads of food and grocery items to America's Second Harvest, while ConAgra Foods will donate 35 truckloads and pledged to match individual donations to America's Second Harvest up to $200,000.

Many others focus on local giving.

That includes Navistar Financial Corp., the Schaumburg, Ill.-based finance subsidiary of the International Truck and Engine Corporation.

Among other things, employees from the company give gifts each year to hundreds of students at the Lafayette Specialty School, a school that serves toddlers all the way up to eighth-graders in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood.

John Mulvaney, Navistar Financial's chief financial officer, recently played Santa Claus as he and his staff handed out the gifts to excited students who'd written "letters to Santa."

Tia Martins, a fourth-grader, was one of those. She asked for an electronic diary, "so I can write all the things that happened to me, so I would never forget them."

"It means a lot to me that people that I don't even know would go out and spend their hard-earned money on me," Tia said. "Even though I don't get a lot of gifts, I'm still happy with what I have, not what I could've had."

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