Public Answers Call to Help Needy Families

Santa’s helpers are out in full force this holiday season, providing help to needy families in the Adopt-a-Family program sponsored by Meet Each Need With Dignity.

More people than needed volunteered to adopt a family this season.

“It seems to fluctuate,” said Marianne Haver Hill, executive director of the Pacoima-based organization. “Sometimes we’re scrambling, and sometimes we have quite a few people coming forward.”

Hill said that many of the families in need live in garages, sleep on floors and have no heat, refrigerators or stoves. About 1,200 people were interviewed for the program in October, and nearly 200 qualified for assistance.

The remaining 1,000 families received gift baskets of food and toys donated to MEND.

But the lowest-income families received a bit more: a full holiday meal, a present for each family member, and a gift of one useful household item.

“For the most needy families that get adopted, they get extra stuff we wouldn’t be able to provide for them each Christmas,” Hill said. “And it’s often just the basics, like drinking glasses.”

Hill said people who adopt--individual families, businesses, clubs and school classes--have told her they get happiness from giving and they discover some things.

“It’s usually a learning experience for groups that adopt,” Hill said. “It’s a sort of personal reflection of their own material blessings.”

For that reason, the program requests that the groups deliver the gifts and food personally to the families.

“This is a tangible way of helping people,” Hill said. “They stand face to face with someone in critical need, in their homes.”