Members of the Skokie community pitched in to raise nearly $40,000 for the village’s most financially needy families during the 2016 annual Assist-A-Family Program fundraiser, village officials said.
The funds were used to buy gift cards to grocer Jewel-Osco and big box retailer Target for 127 families. In total, 188 adults and 243 children were helped, according to Anne Tennes, the village’s director of marketing and communications.
She said the money raised for the 2016 assistance was $10,000 more than the previous year.
All families who received assistance from the Assist-A-Family Program had contact with a Skokie social worker from the village’s Human Services Division at some point last year, according to Tennes. Families that requested HSD assistance due to financial hardship were flagged by staff for the end-of-the-year aid. The social service department also received referrals from area schools and other social workers aware of needy families in the community, Tennes said .
HSD Director Maureen Murphy said the department’s mission is to enhance the quality of life of all Skokie residents, but this particular program targets those who are most financially vulnerable.
“We had many single-parent, female-headed households we helped. We had several grandparents raising grandchildren who we were able to lend assistance to this year,” said Murphy. “We also had many two-parent headed households where folks had just fallen on hard times, had experienced unemployment or the loss of hours at their place of work.”
While the program aims to help as many families in need as possible, those who suffered setbacks like the loss of a job, medical troubles or loss of a home or utilities were given priority, Tennes said.
Assistance was distributed based on a formula that provided every minor in a needy household with a $50 Target gift card, and each member of the family with a $10 gift card to Jewel-Osco, Tennes explained.
“For example, a single-parent family with three children would receive $40 in Jewel gift cards,” Tennes said.
Seniors living by themselves received a $40 Jewel-Osco gift card.
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For privacy reasons, the village would not publicly name who benefited from the program, and the gift cards were distributed by HSD staff in a private setting, Tennes said.
The genesis of the program dates back over four decades, according to Skokie Fire Department Chief James Walters.
A firefighter named Norm Lambert, who served with the village’s Fire Department from the 1970s through the 1990s, started a campaign to raise money after a young local girl was killed in a car crash.
Her family couldn’t afford a tombstone, according to Walters.
So what began as a one-time fundraiser to pay for her grave maker evolved into “Boot Day” — an annual event in which Skokie firefighters would solicit donations on busy street corners around the Thanksgiving holiday to help needy families in the community, Walters said.
According to Walters, Lambert worked with the village’s social service agencies to determine who needed assistance most and would interview the families, buy gifts for their children and “all the fixings for a nice Christmas dinner.”
“It started out with only a few families but grew every year,” the fire chief said.
When Lambert reached the end of his career during the late 1990s, the Human Services Division stepped in and created the Assist-A-Family program, according to Walters.
Though “Boot Day” no longer exists, fire department staff are among the donors to the Assist-A-Family program.
The amount community members contributed to the program this past year “was a great surprise,” Murphy said.
“The beauty of this community is people really do care about their neighbors,” she said. “This is a community where people really are so generous.”
Lee V. Gaines is a freelancer.