By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Christmas is less than two weeks away, and AFL-CIO Community Services in St. Joseph still has many families in need.
Executive Director Nichi Seckinger says there are 349 families that are awaiting adoption in its Adopt A Family program with only 12 days left until Christmas.
"We actually have quite a few folks left that need help, and it's a blend, we don't really have any in particular size of family or anything else for that matter," Seckinger tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "We still have adults left, seniors left, we have small and large families alike, so it's kind of across the board."
Seckinger says there are several ways people can get involved with AFL-CIO Community Services.
"They can come down and go through our books and find a family that they would like to adopt and shop for that family, take the gifts to the family or they can bring those items back here to our agency and we will get them delivered to the family," Seckinger explains. "They can go out and buy items that they think that children or adults would appreciate or enjoy and bring those items down to our agency, we have a gift room that families are allowed to go through and select items out of that room, all of those items are new so that gives them an opportunity to shop essentially in our store is how we see it, three items for each person in the household plus stocking stuffers."
And on top of that, they can also donate money to provide for families.
"We use that for gift cards to supplement the people that who come in and shop in our gift room if they cannot find items for their family members, and we also use those funds to cover our shut ins and our nursing home residents that are not publicly adopted," Seckinger says.
Seckinger says that the AFL-CIO Community Services has been very lucky over the years to be able to provide something for families that do not get adopted.
"We have luckily never had a year that we haven't been able to at least provide each family with something for the holidays, " Seckinger says. "Usually sometimes we can get them to go through our gift room and be able to get items, which you know those are all brand new things that are donated by people in our community as well, so that's a great way to do it, because they get several items for everyone in the household including stocking stuffers, so that's always good, so we get some of the folks in through that way."
Seckinger says her concern this year though is the amount of familes that are still awaiting adoption, the number being much higher this close to the deadline, than in years past.
Seckinger though, while concerned, is still keeping the faith that all these families will be provided with gifts come Christmas time.
AFL-CIO Community Services saw a surge of families applying for adoption last year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Seckinger says that AFL-CIO never knows what will cause numbers to flux, saying that there are some things that they think will affect the numbers and it doesn't, and also some that they think won't that do.
But when it comes to COVID, Seckinger thought that this year would really mellow out as numbers had started to decline, but they are still seeing the effects in peoples applications.
"We really thought that you know, with things, or how we thought would be calmed down by COVID by now, and it almost hasn't because we're seeing a spike now, we thought that maybe it would kind of mellow out by this time this year, and it hasn't really," Seckinger says. "And we're still seeing applications coming through where people have said they've lost work because of COVID, or that they were still trying to financially recover from having had COVID in the past 18 months or so."
Seckinger says the numbers of applicants has stayed pretty consistent over the last three years, dating back to before the pandemic, but she says this year what they are seeing a lot of is people that were able to get back to work, but then lost their job because they got sick and had to take off.
One thing that Seckinger recalls from last year, is the amount of generosity that AFL-CIO Community Services saw from people in the middle of the pandemic.
"Last year, oddly, people were really really generous with COVID," says Seckinger. "And I think that what we saw a lot of, were the folks who didn't necessarily need their stimulus checks were going out and adopting families that they knew really needed the help, and this year we don't have that boost, we don't have as many folks that have that excess amount of funds that can help that way, and so while we're still seeing those folks adopt, they maybe aren't adopting as many families, or able to help as much as they did last year."
And that generosity has even carried into this year, as AFL-CIO saw Reed Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in St. Joseph not only adopt 205 people, but also make a huge monetary donation.
"That is such a huge number of families for one group to take on, and to provide that kind of assistance," Seckinger proudly says. "I think anybody can relate to how hectic Christmas shopping can be, and just how nervous it makes us to do that, and so to think about going out and doing all of that shopping for a whole bunch of people all at the same time, I would go crazy myself, but I cannot imagine shopping for 205 people, I have a hard enough time shopping for five people."
You can find more information on the Adopt-A-Family program HERE.