Charities rally to reach poor after ‘perfect storm’

It took Susan Nolan an hour and a half to drive from Spokane’s North Side to the Christmas Bureau at the Spokane fairgrounds. Her car got stuck twice – once in front of her home and then again on North Foothills Drive. Her 6-year-old daughter, Bethany, said happily, “People helped us!”

Good Samaritans dug Nolan’s car out of the snow each time, but her luck didn’t hold. The Christmas Bureau was closed Friday for the second day because of weather and bad roads. Though the closures had been reported by varius local media, Nolan didn’t get the word.

She wasn’t alone. Men, women and children drove or walked up the bureau throughout the day only to find it closed. The bureau will open at 10 this morning, and volunteers plan to stay past the 2:30 p.m. closing time if needed.

The immobilizing weather adds another layer of stress to many families in need. Some depend almost entirely on charitable initiatives for holiday meals and gifts.

“What we’re looking at here is a series of uncontrolled events that will hit the poor harder than usual,” said Rob McCann, executive director of Catholic Charities Spokane. “There were more (events) this year than ever because of the economy and the governor’s budget. It’s the perfect storm after the perfect storm.”

The Season of Sharing program, sponsored by Spokane Valley Partners, canceled its Friday gift distribution because of the weather. The organization had received enough donations to give Christmas gift packages to 650 families.

“We didn’t want to put our volunteers and families at risk. We didn’t want anyone injured just to get gifts,” said Connie Nelson, Spokane Valley Partners’ program director.

Nelson hopes to reschedule the gift distribution Monday or Tuesday. The program’s distribution center is at Spokane Valley United Methodist Church.

“We’re hunting for people with snowplows to do the two main streets leading to the church, Balfour and Raymond,” she said. “They aren’t big ones. And the church is not going to be able to get the parking lot done.”

Marilee Roloff, head of Volunteers of America, has been part of the Christmas Bureau for more than 20 years. She and McCann brainstormed ways Friday to help low-income families get what they need for Christmas. If they didn’t figure it out, Roloff said, “there’s going to be a lot of disappointed children.”

They decided to distribute grocery vouchers Monday through Volunteers of America and Catholic Charities Spokane to serve families who couldn’t make it to the bureau or who traveled there through the snow and cold Thursday and Friday to find it closed.

Those who ventured there Friday didn’t complain much, however. Two women in a white compact car drove up hoping to get presents for their children. They took the closing in stride and said they needed a break from the women’s shelter where they were staying, sleeping six women to a room.

A family, originally from Latvia in the former Soviet Union, drove 45 minutes from Newman Lake to the bureau. Angeliko Kaskevica proudly introduced her 13-year-old daughter by pointing out her season appropriate name: Santa.

Susan Nolan and her daughter made it home from the fairgrounds in just 30 minutes. “We didn’t get stuck again – thank God,” she said. Nolan recently lost her call-center job, but she said, “I’m just trying not to let things get me down.” She and Bethany planned to return to the Christmas Bureau today to finally catch a break on some holiday cheer.