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Low incomes, joblessness driving need for charities this holiday season in St. Lawrence County

Posted 12/18/16

By CRAIG FREILICH A number of neighborhood centers and other organizations in the greater Potsdam-Canton area are reporting increased demand by low-income and jobless residents for free food. The …

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Low incomes, joblessness driving need for charities this holiday season in St. Lawrence County

Posted

By CRAIG FREILICH

A number of neighborhood centers and other organizations in the greater Potsdam-Canton area are reporting increased demand by low-income and jobless residents for free food.

The Canton Church and Community Program, Potsdam Holiday Fund and Norwood-Norfolk-Raymondville Outreach are at the peak of their holiday activity, while food banks continue to try to keep people in need fed.

Reliance on food provided by CC&CP is “way up,” with 237 families served in November, “the highest yet,” Director Connie Jenkins said.

Norma Carey, executive director of the St. Lawrence County Community Development Program, which administers the county’s participation in federal Neighborhood Center and Head Start efforts, says reports from the centers and food pantries confirm need is greater than in previous years.

“Across the board they are saying there is an increase” Carey said.

But the Potsdam Neighborhood Center has noticed a slight decrease. Director Kristal Hayes says 241 households received food in November this year, compared to 269 last year.

However, “there are lots of new people this year” receiving gifts and food from the Potsdam Holiday Fund, said Pres. Pam Yurgartis.

“We’ve checked with other programs in the county. Theirs are down, and we’re up,” she said.

Norwood-Norfolk-Raymondville Outreach is planning on helping out about 120 people, fewer than last year but with many of them new to the holiday program.

“We have a lot of new applicants,” said NNRO President Barbara Lustyik. She said she thinks there are fewer applicants this year perhaps because some of the families they have served in the past have moved away.

Food Need Up

Director Jenkins of the Canton program said the number of families requesting food help is “way up.

“The food pantry is the most direct measure” of the trend, she said.

A record of 25 families in a single day getting help from their food pantry was set on a recent Tuesday, and on the Thursday of the next week, they helped 26 families during the five hours the pantry was open, Jenkins said.

She said the food pantry “had been running at about 50 families a month.”

Now, she says, “it pretty much can be 15 families or more a day over the four days” of the Monday through Thursday weekly food pantry schedule, she said.

“We’re signing up three to four new applicants a week, including some people who had been getting help, then got off, but are back now.”

Though she has been director there for only about nine months, Jenkins said she has been looking at the records, but still is not sure where the spike in apparent need has come from.

Many Factors At Play

“We’ve always had a full range of people using our food pantry,” Jenkins said.

“Right now we have a 19-year-old and a 93-year-old. There are a lot of low-income working people, retirees, single people, single mothers,” Jenkins said.

“Some have just been laid off or had their hours cut. Some are not able to find work. Some have had illnesses or injuries, or their spouses have, and they’ve been off of work and fell behind. It’s not hard to get behind. They got knocked off track, they’re trying and they need a hand,” she said.

Carey suggests that while there are indications the economy has been improving, it has not reached many areas of society.

For one thing, she said, “we’ve received the unemployment numbers, and they look better, but there are still lots of people whose benefits have run out.” The state Department of Labor, which tracks the number of workers who are getting unemployment insurance while they are without a job, doesn’t count those unemployed workers whose benefits have expired.

“I think we’re continuing to see the working poor, who are working but are not making ends meet,” Carey said.

“It’s especially tough at this time of year – the heating season, Christmas – when people are struggling to meet all the needs of their families,” she said.

“There a lot of single moms, a lot of people with low-paying jobs, and seniors surviving on SSI (Supplemental Security Income) and it’s not enough,” Potsdam’s Hayes said.

The Potsdam Neighborhood Center benefits from donations that Hayes says people may bring right to their Civic Center office.

Items that are most in need include non-perishable items and fresh produce contributions to the food bank, baby items including formula, and personal care items. And monetary contributions are always welcome. Info: 265-3920.

Holiday Programs

There are programs throughout St. Lawrence County that make special efforts at this time of year to brighten the lives of people who can use some help in making the holidays better for their families.

In Potsdam and Canton, there are the Potsdam Holiday Fund and the CC&CP’s Giving Trees program.

Both of those community projects, which depend on local contributions, help hundreds of families and the elderly each year with food baskets, gifts and warm clothes for kids

Every year at this time Norwood-Norfolk-Raymondville Outreach prepares “food boxes – good sized food boxes. And the children all get a wrapped toy gift. This year we’ll have quilts for the children in their bags along with a hat and mittens, donated by different churches,” Lustyik said. She said this year they also will have some new socks and underwear to give out.

They depend on donation of items to the effort from parishioners at local churches.

People interested in contributing to the Christmas program pick up individual tags at the churches and return a wrapped gift to the church, Lustyik said.

There is considerable cooperation among various organizations in carrying out the holiday effort.

For instance, Lustyik says that the Potsdam Holiday Fund will transfer to the NNRO the names of any families in the Norwood-Norfolk School District. “They sent us three today,” she said. “The school also does some boxes, and the Norfolk Lions help about 30 mostly elderly people.”

Participation in these programs is “need based,” meaning that there are income guidelines to be certain that those getting help genuinely need it.

All these organizations compare lists of applicants with each other “so there’s not any double-dipping,” Lustyik said.

She said the group tries to help as many people as they can, “but we have to cut it off at some point” in order to get everything done in time for distribution to families.

NNRO’s distribution date this year is Dec. 19.

During the rest of the year the group holds a twice-monthly food pantry at the First Congregational Church in Norwood.

“This past summer we had local food to distribute once a week” with contributions of fresh vegetables from grocery stores, farmers and from gardens at nearby prisons. “All June, July and August we had a weekly food giveaway. This summer was the first time,” she said.

Anyone who wishes to contribute to the program’s work can call Treasurer Mickey McKenna at 353-2896.

The Potsdam Holiday Fund has seen an increase in the number of kids in the families that have applied for their help this year.

“The application numbers are about on par. There are maybe fewer senior citizens and their families, and more young families this year,” Yurgartis said.

Both the Potsdam and Canton programs employ trees with tags on them in local businesses. Each tag has the age and gender of a child. People will take one tag or more, get appropriate gifts, and return the gifts with the tags for distribution before Christmas.

Both Jenkins and Yurgartis continue to be impressed by the level of support the programs have.

“We keep evolving to met the need, and we are very happy with the support we have,” Jenkins said of Canton’s Christmas program.

They will distribute the gifts they have collected at the Canton fire house on Dec. 16 and 17.

Great Community Support

“There is a need, and we’re very grateful for the generosity of the community,” Yurgartis said. She made special mention of the $10,000 contributed by the Hobble Gobble Prediction Run/Walk, organized each year by Derry Loucks. “That’s 20 percent of our budget,” she said.

And she praised the Potsdam Rotary Club, which provides new books for all the kids, and the Potsdam Kiwanis Club, which collects all the gifts from the 57 local businesses who contribute by displaying the trees with the tags on them and holding the gifts as they come in.

And she noted the generosity of the Potsdam Methodist Church, which for years has opened up space for the Holiday Fund to amass the gifts and set up Santa’s Workshop, where the gifts will be handed out on Dec. 16 and 17, and of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints, where the food baskets are made up and from which they will be distributed on Wednesday, Dec. 14.

Meanwhile radio station B993 has been conducting a “Coats for Kids” campaign. “There are reports of a couple hundred coats,” Yurgartis said.

And Jenkins talked about the work the Canton community contributes each year, and yearlong.

She says they are “well supported” by the churches, community groups, businesses and individuals who are generous with their funds and time.

“Church kids are collecting coins, and businesses and clubs are holding specials events” where contributions of food for the food bank are encouraged.

All of these organizations are happy to accept donations of all sorts and the help of volunteers.

“There are many ways to contribute,” Jenkins said.

She noted, for instance, the Canton Goldenaires barbershop singing group collected food for the pantry at a recent concert. The CC&CP is also conducting its annual appeal for cash for donations. “We still have to pay for rent and lights,” she said.

“And volunteers – we always need volunteers,” she said. “They might get jobs, move, or go away for the winter, so they change frequently. We’re always looking for volunteers.”

More info on the CC&CP is available by calling 386-3534.

Call 261-9887 for more info on the Potsdam Holiday Fund.

There is a comprehensive list of food pantries in St. Lawrence County at the GardenShare web site, http://www.gardenshare.org/content/food-pantries.