Christmas gifts are not essential to survival. They will not feed you when you are hungry or shelter you from the cold, but many nonprofits believe they do nourish the soul, especially young ones. Over the past several weeks nonprofits throughout East Orlando sent out SOS messages to businesses, corporations, organizations and the public.
They are short on cash yet the line of people who need assistance keeps growing. While the line to receive will likely get longer as the holidays approach, nonprofit leaders are not as confident that the line to give will be as long as it typically is during this season. “The people who used to give are standing in line for help,” said Sandi Vidal, executive director of Christian Help, a christian organization that works to prevent homelessness through employment assistance.
Nearly 600 struggling families received gifts and a holiday meal last year because of Christian Help’s Christmas program that matches donors to families. That means 1,600 children who would have lived Dec. 25 like any other day will have fond holiday memories. Recently Christian Help sent out a mass e-mail telling people of their financial plight when one of their main donors was unable to give this year.
Half of the organization’s income also comes from their job fairs, but the number of employers who pay for recruitment booths is dwindling as companies fail or become financially burdened by a foundering economy. “We have seen middle-class individuals come in for job leads and food. Many are being foreclosed on and evicted due to job loss. The face of homelessness is changing. The people are just like us,” the SOS read.
“Our hearts are breaking as we have to tell people that there is no place we can send them… We need job leads, canned food, sleeping bags, tents, and most of all volunteers and finances to meet the need.” Each year Christmas comes to Covenant House Central Florida, a nonprofit that serves runaway, homeless and at-risk youth under 21, including teen parents and their babies — nearly 65 percent of whom come from Orange County.
“There are no frills. It is basic stuff like T-shirts, underwear or backpacks. Whatever we provide them they are happy to receive it,” said Maria Mayola, spokeswoman for Covenant House. “The holiday season is our opportunity to give these kids a sense of normalcy. All year we help them find a job, get their GED (general equivalency diploma), and get health care, but during Christmas we give them a meal, put on a play for them and give them gifts.
“It is about them having a good time for once and building the memories that most of us took for granted growing up.” Typically, Covenant House serves anywhere from 40 to 80 children each holiday season, but Mayola said this could be a record-breaking year. The overall number of children the organization cared for this year has risen 15 percent from 2007, but they have raised 10 percent less funds than the previous year, according to Executive Director Jim Gress.
“We all recognize the economy is what it is and I believe it will lead a lot of people to have less discretionary income to support charities and not-forprofits. We expect it to impact the work we do,” he said. “But how much or for how long — those are the questions still lingering out there.” As stress levels rise during the holidays, many families reach their breaking point resulting in more children being referred to Covenant House.
About 30 children call Covenant House home at any given time and many other youth use the organization’s many resources that include a food pantry, lockers, social workers, counselors and a transitional-housing program for young adults. Like many other organizations, Covenant House is reaching out to the community more this year than they have in the past, Gress said.
They are sending out SOS e-mails, scheduling presentations to faith-based and other organizations, and buying advertisements on Lynx buses and billboards. “Historically people are generous toward the holidays and we hope that will be the case now,” Gress said. “But there is so much anxiety running through the country over whether we are in a recession.
It makes everyone nervous.” According to a September report from Giving USA Foundation, charitable giving is impacted by economic slowdowns but not as much as people generally expect. “When the economy is uncertain, as it is in 2008, nonprofits and others naturally assume the one sector that will be heavily impacted is philanthropy,” past chair of Giving USA Foundation George C. Ruotolo Jr., stated in a press release.
“With history as our guide, we know that’s not true. In fact, while charitable giving is impacted by recessions and/or economic slowdowns, it’s not by nearly as much as one might expect.” The report, titled “Giving During Recessions and Economic Slowdowns,” finds that since 1969 total giving in the United States has risen every year in current dollars, except one.
“When the economy shows stress, whether it is a recession or not, giving may grow more slowly, but it still grows,” the report said. But local organizations are still seeing fewer dollars coming in while most are having to expand services. Last week Christian Help assisted a family of five, including an infant, in moving out of their car and into a hotel for a few days while helping them find housing, a service the organization never before provided in its 16 years of operation. “People need so much more than a job right now.
They cannot think about getting a job when they are living out of their car,” Vidal said. In response to the poor economy the organization created a client advocate position, which will navigate all other local agencies and help people find emergency housing, health care and more. “This will help us get through the fact that we are more than just an employment- assistance agency,” Vidal said. “The face of homelessness is prevalent in our days now.”
