With Christmas just weeks away, DuPage County’s largest holiday assistance program for low-income families has sent out an SOS to would-be Santas.
The non-profit People’s Resource Center, sponsors of the annual countywide Share the Spirit Christmas program, had hoped to provide toys, groceries, household items and $25 discount store gift certificates to more than 800 families. However, Share the Spirit program co-coordinator Victoria Luboff said that fewer than 100 gift certificates have been donated.
“We think we will have plenty of toys and food, but we really are running short on gift certificates,” Luboff said. “We also could use more new household items like blankets, irons, electric coffee pots, toasters, hand mixers and pots and pans.”
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Luboff speculated that many donors had chosen to give a carefully selected toy or the makings of a holiday meal rather than a gift certificate because they considered gift certificates an impersonal contribution.
“I think that donors have a mental block against gift certificates, but they allow people to have the dignity of choice,” Luboff said.
According to Luboff, the agency decided to give gift certificates for the first time this year because many clients–most of them working parents with annual household incomes under $17,500–said they would like to make their own merchandise selections.
Discount store gift certificates, in $25 denominations, can be mailed to Share the Spirit, P.O. Box 5188, Wheaton, Il. 60189. Checks also are welcome and will be used to purchase gift certificates, Luboff said.
Gift certificates, along with donations of new household items, also may be dropped off between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. Dec. 15 at the Home Economics Building at the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton. Donors unable to deliver items Dec. 15 may call People’s Resource Center at 630-690-7535 to make alternate arrangements. Because of space limitations, People’s Resource Center is not able to accept on-site donations, Luboff said.