By PETER HUSSMANN
The St. Nick's Christmas Club's 'adoption' book, the heart of the 20-year-old plus organization's efforts to provide gifts, clothes and food to children and families in need of help during the holiday season, is now available at the offices of the Newton Daily News.
Over the past month, the group has enrolled more than 500 children from more than 200 families throughout Jasper County in its yearly program. Now the group is in need of the assistance of the entire Jasper County community in being able to provide for these children this Christmas season.
The "adoption" book lists the ages, clothing sizes and special Christmas gift wishes of the children participating. The names of the children are kept confidential.
Individuals, families, civic organizations and work places may browse through the "adoption" book to select a family or families to buy new gift and clothing items for the children ages newborn to 18. Detailed instructions are provided to those who adopt.
As president of the organization for, well, almost forever, I can attest that the numbers seeking assistance has increased in correlation to the economic situation the county has seen over the past several years. In addition, as more families seek assistance for their children, the number of people who are able to assist through adoption has decreased, putting more of a financial onus on the Christmas Club to directly purchase items for families that go unadopted.
To that end, we also seek financial assistance to help with our costs, especially for the food boxes the Club provides to each family. Financial assistance to the St. Nick's Christmas Club may be sent to P.O. Box 162, Newton, Iowa, 50208.
For those with questions, we have set up a "Ho-Ho Hotline," 641-787-1200, where messages may be left with a club member returning the calls. In addition, you may contact me directly through this site, by e-mail at phussmann@gmail.com or by calling me directly at 641-791-9120.
As our Club motto states, "Yes, Jasper County, there is a Santa Claus." And it's all of you who help continue to make this program a success.
Recent Comments