We work with our town's Dept. of Senior Services to help needy seniors in our area. Everything from sweaters, gloves/mittens to gift cards to local grocery stores and non-perishable food are accepted and then distributed by the social workers. We also encourage the students to write notes to include with the gifts. The response back from the recipients was amazing - the kids realized how much need there is in our relatively affluent community.
Our AP runs a make a difference fund collection. The donations are spent on the needs of families in our school that are below the poverty line (they know who they are). One afternoon close to the end of school about 10 folks go shopping and then everything comes back to the school where it is wrapped and loaded on "sleighs" and then wisked off to families houses. It includes food, clothing and a couple of presents as well. Very enriching event.
We have several community organizations that take care of families in need. Our school does a non-perishable food drive during our Movie Night in November and a hat, mitten and scarves drive in December. Personally, I would rather leave this to those organizations and make contributions as we already do.
My PTO doesn't necessarily "adopt" a family, but we do have food and clothing drives to help our school community. The school nurse, with recommendations from the teachers and staff, comes up with a quantity of those that are in need. She informs me how many are in the family so that we are aware of the need (how much). We then create food and clothing baskets which are handed out right before the holidays, again via the school nurse. We never, nor should we, know who is the recipient.
I would have just answered the poll, but how we select the families to help was not one of the choices.
I know many schools adopt a family for the holidays, but where do you guys find these families? Also, wouldn't it be great to adopt a family for summer and even school beginnings. There are so many families that need help throughout the year.
Wish Upon A Hero
is a great resource to locate and help families all over the United State. We actually set up a holiday browse link to make finding families easier.
