By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A charity program providing a little bit of Christmas to those struggling has seen a big impact from the coronavirus pandemic.
Still, the Adopt-A-Family Christmas Program marches on, according to Executive Director Penny Adams with AFL-CIO Community Services of St. Joseph.
“Even though COVID is here and life has turned upside down, children still are hoping and tried to be good all year so Santa comes to see them. So, we couldn’t tell Santa skip St. Joe,” Adams says during a visit on the KFEQ Hotline. “We had to figure out how are we going to get this done.”
Adams says 748 families applied to be adopted this Christmas with around 400 still needing to be adopted.
The program provides profiles of northwest Missouri and northeast Kansas families which have applied. Donors can choose which to adopt. The program estimates it costs $50 to adopt a child under five, around $75 to adopt children from 5 to 12, and $75-to-100 dollars to adopt a teenager.
Coronavirus concerns have changed how Adopt-A-Family operates. Families applying for assistance normally come to the AFL-CIO Community Services office and fill out the four-page application in person. The office normally gets very crowded this time of year. This year though, applications have been filed online or, if families don’t have access to the Internet, families have picked up an application from the office, fill it out and return it.
Donors often make the annual Christmastime trek to the office to pore over applications and choose families. Adams says many adopters, worried about COVID-19, have reviewed files remotely, either online or by phone.
“Things have just changed completely here. And, every day, we face a new issue, like, oh gosh, we can’t do it that way,” Adams says with a chuckle. “So, we are having to be very, very flexible here.”
The pandemic has had other effects.
Families that might never consider applying for assistance have this year, according to Adams, often because one or both parents have lost jobs due to the pandemic. Some regular donors cannot afford to adopt as many families due a drop in income.
“In our regular line of work, we see people every day that have a decent income or good income that fall into some kind of crisis and need help, according to Adams. “Well, the same thing happens at Christmas. People that have worked all year suddenly for some reason aren’t able to work and have no income.”
Click here for information on the Adopt-A-Family Christmas Program.