It might have been a minor Christmas Bureau miracle: Costco had on hand all 3,200 batteries that failed to arrive as expected with toys that’ll be given away to children in need starting today. And Wal-Mart had the 500 light bulbs needed to light the children’s wall lamps the bureau ordered – volunteers didn’t realize they weren’t included until the eve of the bureau’s opening.
The “supermarket sets” of toddler-size shopping carts and toy groceries to put in them looked familiar to volunteer Hanna Weathers at the Christmas Bureau on Wednesday. She had the same toy as a kid, she said as she helped tote the toys from the end of a semitruck to their assigned spot in the bureau’s behind-the-scenes storage area.
A new toy is a big part of Christmas for a child. Choosing just the right one can be the fun part for parents. The Christmas Bureau provides both – toys for kids and choices for parents. The charity’s toy buyers – who this year ordered 18,139 toys for children from birth through age 17 – work to provide roughly 10 choices appropriate for each age group.
Keenan Loughery took time to think about it when his parents asked him what he wanted for his 13th birthday. That’s typical, said his mother, Jenny Loughery. Even as a little kid, he didn’t give quick answers.
As a culinary student, Ellerie Easterwood had to take weekly “black box” tests: An instructor reveals a surprise ingredient – a meat, a grain – and it’s up to aspiring chefs to turn it into something beautiful and delicious. Black box exercises test chefs’ imagination along with their knowledge and skill.
For a child in need, one little book picked up at the Christmas Bureau can make a big difference. That’s because there’s a strong link between poverty and reading trouble – and you need books at home to start to learn to read.
The Christmas Bureau asks most people receiving gifts to provide proof of their addresses along with photo IDs – but if they don’t have an address, that’s OK. Whether they’re living on the street, in a shelter or in friends’ homes, homeless people can receive grocery vouchers and gifts for their children, said Judy Lee, bureau coordinator.
They had another guy drilling holes for windows in the Hoo-Hoo trucks at Harbor Crest senior apartments. “He drilled about half the box and said, ‘I don’t like this,’ ” said Jack Eskeberg. “No, we didn’t get many holes from Earl.” That’s when Hugh James stepped in. The drill press he can handle, James said this week over a table laden with toy trucks. He worked as he talked, painting the ends of wooden axles with glue and hammering on wheels the size of quarters.
For Christmas Bureau recipient Shirley Cameron, 78, kids are everything. That includes her own two children, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. It also includes other people’s kids – she volunteered for years as a reading tutor for Spokane elementary students. Cameron said she’s always been a “kid person.”
Volunteer Jay Walter has sent people away from the Christmas Bureau because they lack proper ID. And it doesn’t feel good, he said. The bureau distributes Christmas presents to people in need. Its goal is to provide a welcoming environment and positive experience for recipients. But recipients should come prepared with specific documents verifying their identity and address.
There’s a Catch-22 inherent to raising money to help low-income people in a struggling economy: The joblessness, government cuts and financial uncertainty that drive up need for assistance hurt donors, too. “People’s innate sense of helping those in need, that has never changed,” said Ann Marie Byrd, development director at Catholic Charities of Spokane, which organizes the Christmas Bureau with the Volunteers of America and The Spokesman-Review. “Whether they are able to give as much as they have in the past, that’s a whole different ballgame.”
As a child, Bonnie Atkinson felt safe at the Christmas Bureau. It might have been “all those people who looked like grandmas,” giving away toys, who made her feel that way. She accompanied her single mother starting in 1969 on Christmastime trips to select gifts for Atkinson and her brother and sister.
This morning, thanks to you, thousands of kids are getting something for Christmas. You know who you are. You stepped into the newspaper’s office to deliver your check or your crisp bill. You gave at the office, sacrificing a bit of each paycheck. You played in a band to raise money, you pressed your friends and colleagues and pinochle partners to add their dollars to yours, you organized fundraisers. You were busy and your kids were yelling at each other, and still you dug out your checkbook and found a stamp and mailed in your gift.
Are we there yet? No, but we’re halfway there. Considering the ambitious goal – to raise $500,000 to help struggling families at Christmas – that’s impressive progress. Donations to the Christmas Fund so far have been as small as $5 and as big as $15,000. Each is accepted with thanks and goes toward the bills for the food vouchers, toys and books distributed over 10 days to tens of thousands of people in need at the Christmas Bureau.
Escaping the office for a stint at the Christmas Bureau was a treat for Jenny McCauley – even if her volunteer position had her parked, again, in front of a computer. At the Christmas Bureau, real live people sat on the other side of her monitor, providing their personal information for bureau records and accepting the food vouchers McCauley printed out for them.
For a little kid, a wait in a long line can seem endless – tragic, even, to one boy who’d thrown himself on the ground Friday morning and begun to whimper softly. Becca Mangan, 18, strove to keep things lively for her daughter, Charlie, as they waited outside the Christmas Bureau. Besides taking Charlie, 1, to play in the snow – scraped into lumpy piles on the wet grass – she employed a variety of tactics: walking, running in circles, pointing out cars and clouds.
You’ve heard of buying locally and eating locally. The Christmas Fund offers a chance to give locally, to a charity whose influence is immediate and tangible. That’s important to repeat donor Teck American Inc. and its employees, whose $10,000 gift helped boost the fund to $53,894.62.
The cats were yowlin' and the grass was up, and like clockwork I had babies on the brain. Kids, actually. Juvenile goats. It has long been my dream to own a goat, one of those short squat ones who look like footstools. She would be a girl, and she would amble around my yard cropping the grass short, offering goat nuzzles to passers-by, every other week or so presenting between her cloven hands a creamy chunk of goat cheese as a token of thanks.
He's not a stalker, and he's not "some kind of freaky pain junky." He just wants to follow you around – and up hills and through traffic – on his bike.
First came Jean, crying and shaking, who said she was having a nervous breakdown and asked for a hug, and I figured, Well, OK. I didn't know her – I didn't even know how'd she'd gotten into my building – and I didn't know how she picked my door to knock on. She sat on my couch awhile, and we watched a bit of "General Hospital" and talked about her life and my life – she'd recently lost a couple of jobs – and I left her there as I went to get ready for my night shift. I hoped she wouldn't steal anything while I was in the shower, and if she did, it would be something I had two of.
