Non-Profits Lose Donations

The Voluntary Action Center has been struggling to receive donations this year for their annual Christmas Program.Ron Schmidt is the Project Director for the Voluntary Action Center. He says families had to wait to get help.”Our goal is to always get those families sponsored, but it took a little longer this year than usual.”The Adopt a Family Program assists roughly 1,200 families, which is roughly 4,000 to 5,000 including the elderly.”But that’s pretty much all the community that’s all I think we can support,” said Schmidt.Schmidt says filling the need of others continues to get tougher as the economy affects more and more families each year.”A lot of people usually say I used to donate to the Center, I used to be a sponsor for your Christmas program, and now here I am asking for help,” said Schmidt.The manager of the Salvation Army Family Store says more customers are coming in as well, but they have lost donations.”Televisions, computers, things of that nature, not so much, we have seen a drop in those kind of luxury items,” said manager Robert Wells.The Salvation Army will have it’s Christmas Toy Shop this year, but is still unsure whether or not they will hand out Christmas baskets as they did for Thanksgiving this year.Many of the local non-profit organizations attribute the failing economy to the decline in donations and the additional families that need assistance each year.