Annual Holiday Drive

Contributions to the Helpers Fund Holiday Drive can be made online, using our secure form.

Each year-end, the Helpers Fund conducts its Holiday Drive in order to raise additional funds to assist area individuals and families during the holiday season and into the winter. This enables us to be of help in many ways - winter clothing, food, heating assistance, and emergency payments for other necessities. The total number of people receiving direct assistance from this program does not include the people the Fund assisted through its regular procedures during the year.

In 2011, the Fund is again sponsoring three programs for the holidays - Adopt-A-Family, the Food Program, and the Winter Clothing program. Details for the 2011 Holiday Drive are on this site, as well as a form to print and mail with your contribution. Contributions to the Helpers Fund Holiday Drive can also be made online, using our secure form.

In 2010, about 100 individuals were provided with winter clothing, food for the holidays and heating assistance. Some of this assistance continued into the 2011 year. Though this drive supplies many needs during the holiday period, it was designed, originally, to make sure every family in the immediate area had proper winter clothing. Because of the success of the program, services associated with the holiday period have been expanded.

The fund distributes applications to the area families most in need. Each adult is allowed the choice of one item of winter clothing, while those below 17-years of age are allowed to pick as many as four items of winter clothing. Every person listed on the application will receive at least one item of winter clothing. These applications are returned to the Fund by December 1st, and the shopping is done, and the items wrapped and distributed in time for the holiday.

Since there are many other “holiday programs” in the area the Fund checks with these other organizations to make sure a family is not going to receive assistance from more than one program.

One of the local churches contacts us each year and asks if we could forward 20 to 30 items of clothing needed by some of the peo­ple on our list. The Fund makes out a slip, with the age of the person being assisted, the item of clothing needed and the size. Each one of these slips is then placed on the church's Christmas Tree, and individual members pick a slip from that tree and purchase the item and then returning that item to the Fund for distribution. There are also numerous times where the family may also receive food credits and heating assistance as well as the clothing.

In 2011, the Fund is again sponsoring three programs for the holidays - Adopt-A-Family, the Food Program, and the Winter Clothing program. Details for the 2011 Holiday Drive are on this site, as well as a form to print and mail with your contribution. Contributions to the Helpers Fund Holiday Drive can also be made online, using our secure form.

The Helpers Fund is a 501(c)3 charity under the rules of the Internal Revenue Service and is incorporated under the laws of the State of New York and listed with the New York State Bureau of Charities.

Top of Page