Entrenched in the holiday season, volunteer Barbara Hall has been busy fielding phone calls and collecting food and toys for the Family Resource Center in Windham.
She is a member of the Windham Human Service Advisory Committee that now runs the town’s food pantry and clothes closet at the Resource Center, next door to the Windham Public Safety Building on Gray Road, where low-income families can pick up weekly groceries and clothes for their children.
In addition to the food pantry and clothes closet, the Resource Center sponsors yearly Thanksgiving and Christmas charities like the upcoming “Toy Workshop” on Dec. 10; charities that are made possible by help of local schools, churches and private donors and volunteers.
And this year, there is an increased need, Hall says.
“I think everybody’s worried about the increase cost of oil,” Hall said. “And we don’t want people to have to choose between oil and food.”
For Thanksgiving, Hall and volunteers distributed over a hundred baskets filled with food for a traditional turkey dinner. The resource center plans to distribute similar Christmas baskets for Dec. 21.
And though the need has increased, so has the support.
“We were overwhelmed with the support the community gave us,” Hall said. “We were extremely pleased with the generosity of the community at large.”
Windham Middle School students collected $3,000 in canned goods for Thanksgiving baskets and Windham Primary students collected donations for the Resource Center.
Many of those same students are now raising money to “adopt” families in need for Christmas through the middle school’s “Helping Hand’s Club.” And all donations will be kept anonymous, said Middle School Principal Hal Shortsleeve.
“Anonymously, the kids won’t know who they are supporting,” Shortsleeve said. “And anonymously we will support those families.”
Through coordination with local resource centers, churches donated money and Thanksgiving baskets to needy families in not just Windham, but Standish, Casco and Raymond as well, said Ann McDonough, chair of the Social Justice and Peace Commission at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church.
For Christmas, Our Lady collects their own gifts to give to those in need under a “giving tree,” she said. On its limbs hang tags with gift ideas and parishioners take the tags and drop off the gifts to be later distributed by youth ministry students to needy families.
“All this comes from the parishioners,” McDonough said. “They put their faith in action, and it’s fabulous.”
At the Resource Center’s “Toy Workshop” on Dec. 10, families in need can come to pick out holiday gifts for their children. Families who would like to sign up for the workshop can call or stop by the Resource Center between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The center is open until 7 p.m. on Monday for the food pantry.
If you would like to “adopt” a family for the holidays or volunteer to help out at the Resource Center, call 892-1931. If you would like to donate to the “Toy Workshop,” gifts may be dropped off at the Family Resource Center.
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