By Chris Ruvo:
The letter cut Patti Stracci to the quick.
In it, the member of the Levittown-Bristol Kiwanis Club read about the plight of a single mother who was requesting help from Give A Christmas, an annual holiday season fund drive for the area’s less fortunate residents that Kiwanis conducts in partnership with the Bucks County Courier Times.
As the letter related, the single mother of three was trying to get back on her feet following surgery related to a serious illness. The woman wanted desperately to give her children a Christmas. She also asked, humbly, if it would be possible to obtain a bed frame. So honest was the woman, that she enclosed in her letter three unused, expired vouchers from the previous year’s Give A Christmas. She had not able to spend them due to her illness, which had required hospitalization.
“She expressed such sincere appreciation for our previous generosity to her family and was asking if we would again consider their request for assistance,” said Stracci.
Kiwanis was happy to provide.
“Aside from the vouchers provided by the GAC fund, a community furniture store donated the bed frame and assorted linens were donated by some of our members,” said Stracci. “And, because Mom was preparing to finally return to work and was still working on getting a vehicle of her own to get her there, it became my pleasure to ease her worry and concern by making sure everything was delivered to her apartment in time for their holiday.”
The vouchers and furniture, of course, wouldn’t have been possible without the donations of generous Lower Bucks County residents and businesses who answered the call of Kiwanis and the Courier Times to donate to Give A Christmas.
Running this 2017 holiday season for a 60th year, the campaign centers on collecting and distributing monetary donations to families experiencing financial hardship in Lower Bucks County.
While called Give A Christmas in the spirit of good will and generosity traditionally associated with the Christian holiday, the assistance the campaign provides is available to people of all religious backgrounds.
Typically, the money is dispersed as $25 vouchers for children. The vouchers are redeemable at participating local supermarkets — Acme, Redner’s Market, Selecto Market — and other stores, including Barnes & Noble and Burlington Coat Factory.
Certainly the donations are needed, for poverty has a home here in the suburbs, with 41,818 people in Bucks County living below the poverty line. That’s 6.6 percent of the county’s population.
Last year, Courier Times readers contributed $112,232.82 to Give A Christmas. Those funds allowed for the distribution of vouchers to 4,651 children in Lower Bucks County.
In 2017, Give A Christmas aims to top last year’s tally. The goal is to raise $120,000 — a figure that would add to the more than $4.5 million that has been donated to the fund drive over its decades of history.
Stracci encourages everyone to donate to the fund, for in giving, she said, one receives a wonderful gift in return — the feeling, spiritual and emotional, that you’ve helped bring a little goodness and light to your neighbors who need it most.
“It turned out to be a most humbling and yet most rewarding experience one can hope to have,” Stracci said of her Give A Christmas participation. “Spread the joy through your donations during this 60th anniversary of the 2017 GAC. We’re all part of a wonderful community helping one another.”
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