The Holiday Basket Project

63: The guess-timated number of applicants for Holiday Baskets I saw yesterday.

Part of my VAD (Vista Assignment Description) is for me to work on the Holiday Basket Project, which basically recruits volunteers to put together baskets of food for low-income families for Thanksgiving and Christmas, as well as toys and other gifts for the holiday season. I had just been attending meetings every two weeks, and making my cell number available to the organizations who are involved in the project. A few weeks ago, though, Family Services of Middletown sent me an e-mail asking if I would be willing to go down there and help people register for baskets of food and gifts. So yesterday I drove the half hour to Middletown, having no clue what to expect.

As soon as I walked in the building I knew it would be a busy day. It was packed with people who had wandered in and wanted to register. It took me longer than necessary to walk the twenty or so feet to the back of the building, where I met with Connie, who was helping to organize the project. She handed me a sheet of paper, said "These people came in on Tuesday and might come back today with their missing paperwork. Make sure they have this, this, this and this, thanks so much for the help, sit right here!" and was ushered away by more people with more questions.

I was overwhelmed at first, ("Wait, so ...if there...should I...wha?") but I got the hang of it quickly enough. People started streaming in with missing paperwork, and I was soon given the responsibility of helping new clients fill in whole new applications (I guess you could call them applications).

It was kind of a downer day, though. Apparently some people have taken advantage of the program in the past, or are asking for assistance from several organizations, so they have to make sure that the people coming in for help really do need the help. So I had to ask for documentation for just about everything: Birth certificates for everyone in the household, food stamp verification, leasing agreements, utility bills, pay stubs. And if they were missing documents, I was supposed to send them away and ask them to come back. Which meant having them go home, rummage around for these documents, come back and wait in line all over again. I could only imagine the frustration that they had to go through. And all they were asking for was a basket of food for their family for the holidays.

I just do not like the fact that it is still so hard for some people to get assistance. Hopefully that will change.