Bureau beneficiaries come from many walks
If the trend continues, it will be a record year at the Christmas Bureau, which is on course to provide a little something extra this holiday season to more people than ever.
It would be an oversimplification to dismiss the hundreds of families that appear at the bureau each day as down on their luck.
Some are out of work. Others are disabled. Most are working families living on salaries that don’t make ends meet, stuck in jobs that don’t provide health insurance.
Kari Elkins wasn’t bemoaning her bad luck as she stood in line last week for a food voucher, a bag of candy, and one book and one present for each of her two boys, ages 5 and 1 1/2. Elkins lost her job as a caregiver when a patient with a developmental disability threw her down a hill outside a group home.
Now she is doing what she can to support her family while she awaits a state Labor and Industries settlement in order to repair her injured back.
“Without the Christmas Bureau, we wouldn’t have Christmas,” Elkins said.
Statistics gathered by the bureau show the average family seeking help this year brings in about $1,200 a month.
In Washington, a family with two adults, one working, and two children would have had to earn nearly $4,000 a month to meet basic needs in 2006, according to a study released in October by the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations, a Seattle nonprofit advocacy group.
One in five jobs in the Northwest pays a living wage as defined by the federation, and there are 10 people in line for that job.
Between 2002 and 2006, the cost of living increased more than twice as fast as wages, The Spokesman-Review reported in an article about the study. Health care costs grew five to 10 times faster than wages.
“Everything from gas to groceries has gone up,” said Pamela Hawkins, a stay-at-home mother whose husband works 40 hours a week. “It’s a fairly good job, but it’s not enough.”
Without the bureau, Hawkins said, Christmas would be a struggle.
“Every year is pretty much a struggle, but it always turns out OK,” Hawkins said. But being able to give your kids something “boosts your confidence.”
Christmas Bureau vouchers – $35 for a family of four – are good for pretty much anything but alcohol and tobacco at several area stores. Bureau chairwoman Carol Speltz said her records show most vouchers are turned in at Fred Meyer stores for diapers, children’s underwear and socks.
“They were not buying inappropriate things,” Speltz said.
This is the fourth year Richard Hawks Jr. and his wife, Jessica, have come to the bureau, but it was the first time with their 3-week-old daughter, Kastile.
The Hillyard couple was struggling to support their three boys, ages 8, 6 and 15 months, on the money Richard brings in restoring homes and landscaping. It hasn’t helped that Kastile was born with a heart valve that would not close properly.
Of course, as far as the Hawkses are concerned their baby is a miracle, the first girl born to Richard’s family in nearly 20 years.
With the help of the Christmas Bureau and its volunteers, all the Hawks children will have something under the tree again this year.
“I appreciate how they take care of people,” the father said. “They offer that little bit of hope, the spark of Christmas for someone.”