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January 2, 2004/Tevet 8 5764, Vol. 56, No. 15
Gifts galore
LEISAH NAMM
Managing Editor
Kathy Rood, Jewish services coordinator at Jewish Family & Children's Service, stands among the many gifts donated as part of the organization's holiday program.
Photo by Leisah Namm
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In mid-December, the Phoenix office of Jewish Family & Children's Service is overrun with large garbage bags filled with wrapped gifts.
The office serves as a collection center for the JFCS holiday program - a drop-off point for donations from bikes and board games to toys and toiletries that make their way into homes to help families celebrate the holiday season.
All recipients are JFCS clients; case managers select the clients they deem would benefit most and help them fill out a "wish list," says Kathy Rood, JFCS Jewish services coordinator and geriatric intake specialist. All families remain anonymous.
Common requests include children's clothing, board games, diapers and hygiene supplies, Rood says. This year, about 150 sponsors donated Hanukkah and Christmas gifts for about 210 families - or nearly 1,000 individuals - throughout Maricopa County. Many families have six or more members, she notes.
Marcia Goodman, a volunteer who has worked with the holiday program for about 12 years, helps find individuals or businesses to sponsor the families.
The program "was very small when I first started to do it," says the former JFCS president; that year, the program served about 75 people. Last year's program, the largest to date, served 375 families. Less people required assistance this year, she says.
Goodman notes a recent trend regarding the type of families who need assistance.
"First we had a load of single mothers with children and now all of a sudden we have grandparents bringing up the children," she says. "It's interesting how it changes."
The wish lists include gifts for everybody in the family, including adults. "The grandparents very rarely ask for anything for themselves," Goodman notes. "They ask for the children, but we always try to give them something, too."
In addition to gifts, monetary donations are used to purchase grocery store gift certificates for each family, Goodman says. "We want to make sure they can have a good holiday dinner so we give them food coupons to help them with that."
After all the gifts are delivered to the Phoenix office, the People's Thrift Shop truck delivers them to the six other JFCS branch offices, where clinicians distribute them to their clients.
"They get the best job," Goodman says. "They get to hand over the presents."
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