Contact: Gabrielle Comfort November 9, 2012
Email:
gcomfort@sco-oc.org
949-380-8144 ext. 210
South County Outreach’s Toy Store
Lake Forest, Calif. – It is almost
Christmas time again and South County Outreach will reach out to local children
whose parents are not able to provide for them. As the holidays approach, many
people look for ways to help their neighbors in need. The decision on where to
donate - food drives, school fundraisers and end-of-year donation solicitations
– can be a hard one.
A fun and easy way to help low-income
children in your area is to buy Christmas gifts for them. Many kids would not
get any gifts on Christmas morning if it weren't for the support of their community.
South County Outreach offers a variety of ways to get involved.
Since 1997, South County Outreach’s
Adopt-A-Family program has assisted in matching over 400 needy families each
year to community sponsors during the holidays. In addition, another 500
families that do not receive direct sponsorship will visit the week-long Toy
Store to select donated toys and clothes to share with their children.
South County Outreach’s Adopt a
Family-style programs contain guidelines and wish lists for specific children
based on their gender, ages and preferences and offers families an opportunity
to directly know those they are helping.
These two programs can be quite the
undertaking for a small non-profit in an area of Orange County thought to be
too affluent to have hungry and homeless residents. Securing enough sponsors and supplies is a
challenge, finding the extra space to store all the toys and foods requires
additional man-hours, but finding special volunteers to help secure, sort, and
distribute the donations is always much easier.
“We’re
so grateful for the support of our community, as we’ve been able to help
countless families who struggle to celebrate the holidays with their children,”
says executive director, Lara Fisher.
The Toy Store is open the entire week
of December 17-21, 2012 and would make a great story line. Possible shots would
include: Talking to the volunteer truck drivers and volunteers as they unload
donated food for the onsite Food Pantry; volunteers opening the doors for the
Toy Store; Seeing the families as they arrive to secure gifts for their
children; and helping the Volunteers package holiday food bags.
South County Outreach has over 250
regularly scheduled volunteers and over 1,600 who assist throughout the year
with food drives and seasonal programs.
South County Outreach volunteers help with all aspects of the
organization including interacting with clients, sorting food and stocking
shelves in the food pantry, driving trucks and picking up donations, handling
retail responsibilities at Upscale Resale Thrift Store, teaching classes at the
Computer Learning Lab, and much more.
“The faces of the children are priceless when
they receive their toys and I often get hugs from the kids and tears from the
parents,” says long-time volunteer, Dick Northrop, “It’s the most amazing time
of year.”
About South County Outreach - South County Outreach, founded in 1989, is
a non-profit organization dedicated to providing hunger and homeless prevention
services to families in crisis in South Orange County. South County Outreach
helps the underemployed and the unemployed reach self-sufficiency by providing
the following services: food pantry, transitional housing, utility and rental
assistance, homeless prevention counseling, computer training and clothing to
support homeless families. In 2011, South County Outreach distributed more than
1 million pounds of food and provided more than 50,000 services.
For more information about South
County Outreach, visit http://www.sco-oc.org.
