In attempts to help local citizens during the holiday season, organizations throughout Butler County are expanding their seasonal charity efforts.
While each year Butler County Children's Services (BCCS) tries to help foster children during the holidays, this season the BCCS is expanding its efforts to include more families.
According to Denise Winkler, director of community and public relations for the BCCS, this year the agency wants to help families through their adopt-a-family program. Similar to their adopt-a-child program in which people donate specific gifts requested by specific children, adopt-a-family allows a donor to purchase gifts for every member of a family.
Winkler said past donations have included items such as family board games and clothes for parents. She added that some donors would even go as far as to supply holiday meals for the family they adopt.
"Our programs are set up to serve children and families who might not otherwise have a holiday," Winkler said.
Winkler said programs through the BCCS are designed so the donor can pick a program that fits his or her needs.
For example, for a business looking to work with a BCCS holiday program, Winkler said one option is to host a tree. Through this program, the BCCS will supply the donor with ornaments for a Christmas tree. Each ornament will have a request from a child or family for a gift. Donors can pick an ornament from the tree, purchase that gift and place it under the tree. The BCCS will then pick up and deliver the gifts to the families or children. Winkler said past examples of gifts include Barbie and Bratz dolls.
Diane Ruther-Vierling, executive director of the Oxford Family Resource Center, echoed these sentiments, explaining that the BCCS program gives children something special during the holiday season.
"If you look at foster children, they're separated from their parents and families," she said. "They're with people they don't really know and Christmas is a big event ... It's really nice to be able to help with Christmas for the kids and I am totally in favor of it."
Ruther-Vierling mentioned a similar program the Oxford Family Resource Center is extending to families in Oxford, allowing families to purchase gifts for their children.
While these programs are aimed at helping children and families, Winkler said one group that tends to get overlooked during the holidays is teenagers.
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"Right now our biggest need is we have a lot of teens," Winkler said. "A lot of times the teens can get left out."
Winkler encourages donors interested in giving to teens to invest in gift cards. She said these can be most helpful for the age group.
According to Winkler, the fourth holiday program that is new to this year's lineup is an ornament designed by a foster child that can be purchased for $10. All proceeds will go to a children's gift fund to help purchase last-minute holiday gifts.
She said that while this year a very gifted foster child created the ornament's design, the BCCS is looking to go a different route to develop a design for next year's ornament.
"Next year we want to do this in a larger way with an art contest amongst our kids," Winkler said.
Winkler explained that programs like those through the BCCS can be very beneficial for children and families during the holidays. She said families that the BCCS works with are struggling and are looking to stabilize to be stronger, better families.
Winkler said the BCCS has more than 350 children in foster care at any point in time.
"These children are away from all things familiar to them and often times they are worried and have unique problems and issues unique to foster kids," Winkler said. "Gifts at the holidays are a simple thing that brings a lot of joy and peace to kids."
Additional reporting by Christopher Washington
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