The news releases
landed in my e-mail several days ago. That
was nothing new. I receive mail from both of
the charitable organizations every few
weeks. But these two releases, taken
together, seemed to present pictures that
were different enough to catch my eye.
The news from Cheerful
Givers was that the Eagan group had provided
birthday gift toy bags for 36,529
underprivileged Minnesota children, mostly
in the metro area, during 2006. That
represented an increase of 39 percent over
2005, Karen Kitchel, Cheerful Givers
president, told me later.
But the news from the
CAP Agency, on the surface, anyway, seemed a
bit darker. Donations to the charitable
organization's annual Give Where You Live
campaign were down by 10 percent from
figures of a year ago -- almost $40,000
short of the $230,000 fundraising goal, with
today as the campaign's deadline.
Will the CAP Agency,
which serves Dakota, Scott and Carver
counties, go out of business without that
$40,000? Hardly. But it does mean scrambling
to stretch the dollars and doing more things
to attract more money. And it means a little
more stress in the lives of people who
depend on the agency's food shelves and
other emergency services -- people who
already have enough stress.
"There are more and
more people who need our services. The
people we serve are the working poor, and
they can't make it to the end of the month"
without help from a food shelf or other
service that CAP offers, said Joan Lynch,
the agency's development director.
And does Cheerful
Givers' increase in toy distribution mean it
can let up on fundraising? Again, hardly.
The group is always
looking for donations, said Kitchel, and it
figures that about 100,000 more kids ages 3
to 12 could have received help.
The more I thought
about the idea that Cheerful Givers gave
away 36,000 gift bags, or that there was
need for another 100,000, the more I
realized that, ultimately, the picture from
both agencies wasn't really all that
different. Bottom line: A lot of
underprivileged children and their families
cling precariously to the American Dream, if
they have a grip on it at all.
"If you can't afford
food or a place to live, you don't have
money to buy your child a birthday present,"
Kitchel said.
Figures from a study
several months ago lend weight to the idea
that a lot of our neighbors need our help.
In Dakota County between 2000 and 2004, the
population rose about 6 percent, but the
number of people in poverty went up about 57
percent.
And Lynch said that CAP
Agency's food shelf, which serves Scott and
Carver counties specifically, served 1,120
families in December, the most ever.
"The numbers just seem
to always go up," she said.
The post-holiday period
is tough on charities. Many people seem to
use up their quota of generosity in one
burst around Christmas.
"In December," Kitchel
said, "so many people are so generous, but
the need is year-round."
