By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
With just nine days left, the Adopt a Family program reports there are still more than half of their families have yet to be adopted.
AFL-CIO Community Services Director Nichi Seckinger says thankfully, there has never been a year where all the families didn't get adopted. But she's aware of the realistic possibility of that happening.
"We would do absolutely everything we could to get them taken care of in some way or another, I mean obviously we would let any of them come through the gift room we have in hopes that we could find some items for them, and do the best we can with them," Seckinger tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "And, we will use the funds that have been donated to be able to try and help as many as we possibly can."
Seckinger says 800 families applied for the program; the highest number since 2015. Seckinger says that number is largely due to economic problems.
"Namely the cost of gasoline, you know a lot of these folks are working, and unfortunately they're the working poor, and so they're barely eking by and when gas prices go up, that cuts into everything they're doing," Seckinger says. "And when they can just barely pay the bills as is, it leaves that much less for anything else."
Seckinger says many of these families Community Services sees year after year as they first apply when their children are younger.
Seckinger reports that thus far 414 families and 11- hundred, 50 individuals have been served, which nearly 400 families awaiting adoption.
And Seckinger says while the economy and rising gas prices has affected those looking to be adopted, it's also affected the number of people who adopt.
"We have had some adopters say unfortunately this year we're only going to be able to adopt a family, where in the past maybe they adopted a couple of families," Seckinger points out. "Or we've had organizations say we've got people signed to help this year but it's not as many as in years past so we're not going to be able to do as much."
"And of course, we're happy to have them help in any way that they can, and we don't ever want anyone to put themselves in a bad position."
Seckinger says that how people can help all comes down to how much time they can afford to give.
"If they have three hours, they can adopt a family and go shop for them, if they have two hours, they can probably go shopping to get some items for the gift room, if they have less than an hour it might be easier for them to just make a donation or buy some gift cards if they want to pick out a specific family," Seckinger explains. "We can turn around an entire adoption in an hour."