Kathy Brown, director of the Shepherd’s Staff, unloads more than 350 winter coats to be donated to the poor. Helping her, Mike Ross, an unemployed brick mason, carries freshly cleaned coats from a truck.
Written by David Greisman, Photos by: Phil Grout
Pat Rafferty has volunteered with her church for nearly 20 years. Deborah Morris has helped out the local chapter of the Salvation Army for about three years. Each will spend this December doing what she did in previous holiday seasons: making sure that Christmas will come to those in Carroll County who could not otherwise afford it.
The experience, both said, is a gift in and of itself.
“People think that we are doing something special for them, but they are really doing something for us,” said Rafferty, a volunteer with and past president of the local St. Vincent de Paul Society, a service ministry of St. John Catholic Church in Westminster.
“They thank us for the work that we do. We’re really glad to do it. They’re in need, and I want to help them,” said Morris, who volunteers with the Carroll County unit of the Salvation Army, which is located in Westminster. “There’s always someone who’s worse off than you and needs help. If everybody helps a little bit, it goes a long way.”
Rafferty and Morris are just two of the countless Carroll Countians working with the needy for the holiday season. The numerous organizations and individuals range from those serving soup, hot chocolate and cookies and singing carols at The Shepherd’s Staff, to the parishioners at St. John who are among those whose donations meant Christmas gifts for thousands of people last year.
“It’s not just the social-service institutions,” said Audrey Cimino, executive director of the Community Foundation of Carroll County. “It’s literally the whole community. That’s one of the beautiful things about living here. This is a special place. We take care of our own.”
“There’s no other time of year that you aim to feel good and embraced,” said Cindy Parr, executive director of Human Services Programs of Carroll County. “There are a lot of people out there who want to be a part of something and do something good. That is the quintessential time for that to occur.”
Human Services Programs of Carroll County calls on a wide swath of the community for its “Neighbors in Need” program, which in 2010 provided gifts for more than 1,400 households, serving more than 4,000 people. Some in the community adopt families for the holiday and give gifts to them. Approximately 600 families were adopted last year; the remaining 800 got their gifts through the organization’s holiday shop.
The shop encompasses several thousand square feet of items that have either been donated or purchased by organization through financial donations. For three days in December it recreates the holiday shopping experience, allowing people to select gifts for their families rather than just walking away with a bag of items someone else had selected, said Holly Hutchins, deputy director of Human Services Programs.
“We certainly don’t do it alone,” she said. “It is something the community has definitely wrapped their arms around.”
The program is made possible, Hutchins said, because of churches, civic organizations, businesses, individuals, Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, cheerleading squads and high school groups, among others. Along with the gift-giving program, groups come to the agency’s shelters and prepare holiday meals for those staying there.
At St. John, its chapter of the St. Vincent de Paul Society adopted 156 needy families for the holidays in 2010, providing gifts for 542 people, according to ministry president Dennis Ford. Human Services Programs provides the ministry with names, which usually come with a wish list for each family.
“We break that down to an inventory and put tags on a tree in the church,” Ford said. The parishioners then come in and take off the tags, which are coded with different colors — one color for those who want to help with food, another for gifts for children,etc.
“We have a very large parish, but the bigness and the generosity of the parishioners is what allows us to do as much as we do,” Rafferty said. “If it wasn’t for the parishioners helping us out, we’d never be able to do this and do it in the amount that we’re able to.”
Organizations start their work months before the holiday season officially begins. In September, for example, the Salvation Army was registering low-income families and people who might not have enough money to buy toys or food or clothing for their kids. Its trademark bell-ringers stand in front of stores from Nov. 12 through Dec. 24, collecting money both for Thanksgiving and Christmas assistance.
“Money’s tight. Jobs are lost,” said its director, Janice Veney. “We want to make sure that children have big smiles on their faces.”
“There’s a new group of poor,” said Cimino, of the Community Foundation of Carroll County. “People who had never before fallen on hard times have now fallen on hard times.”
Those who attend The Shepherd’s Staff’s gathering on the Friday before Christmas include homeless people and families with children.
“People who normally come to Shepherd’s Staff are at risk, on the fringe,” said Kathy Brown, director of the outreach and support center. “We try to give them the warmth and spirit of the season.
Those who contribute to Human Services Programs’ “Neighbors in Need” program are helping people who have sought help in Carroll County at some point over the past year.
“Some of them are the working poor. Some of them are the people you interact with every day,” Hutchins said. “They are your neighbors. They are people who are working. There are people just like everyone else, a mom and dad and two kids, both working, and still times are tough when it comes to the holidays.”
“Times are tough throughout the year,” said Parr. The need, she said, is magnified around Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“It’s critical that people know that there are people out there needing something every day of the year,” she said. “We’re here every day of the year trying to fill that void for them.”
