By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
AFL-CIO Community Services in St. Joseph is beginning preparations for the annual Adopt A Family Christmas program.
Last year, the agency served 894 families that applied for the program. And this year, executive director Nichi Seckinger says they are expecting even more.
Seckinger says last year’s number was a pretty high one for the Adopt A Family program.
“It was a pretty high year for us, in comparison to the prior that was a peak year, we’d kind of been building up to it and that was kind of one of our record setters last year,” Seckinger tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “So, we are anticipating that it’s going to be pretty close to the same numbers this year, if not a little bit higher.”
To help deal with the higher demand, Seckinger says the agency is adding some restrictions to who can apply for the program this year.
Seckinger says applications will be restricted to adults with families and seniors who are actively living on disability. Anyone who applies that does not meet the criteria, will not be put in the program
“And it’s not because we don’t want those folks to have Christmas or receive help, it’s just in anticipation of the number of families that we are probably going to have in the program we’re just worried that we’re not going to be able to get all the families that sign up help,” Seckinger explains. “Especially since this program is mostly for children, we want to make sure those households with kids are going to be able to get the assistance they need.”
Seckinger says the agency will begin accepting applications in just a couple weeks
“We have the application online again this year, it will be active on October 28th which is a Monday so about two weeks from now,” Seckinger says. “They’ll be able to access the application starting Monday the 28th of October on our website at helpmenow.org, and then they can also come into the agency obviously and pick up the application and then return it here.”
Applications will be accepted through December 6th.
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