By LORRAINE SWANSON
Editor
A man selects Christmas gifts for his children at Care for Real on Thursday.
Hundreds of grateful parents worried about filling their children’s stockings this Christmas turned out to “shop” for donated toys at Care for Real on Thursday.
The Edgewater food pantry at 6044 N. Broadway was transformed into a veritable toy land as parents chose from hundreds of unwrapped children’s toys donated by local businesses, churches, schools and organizations. Parents received hats and mitten, books, board games, stocking stuffers, and large toys for each child in the family.
Client families were given vouchers to come in and browse the toy tables during two shopping periods on Thursday. Nikia Pierce, who is unemployed, selected crayons and a Barbie doll for her daughter, Deanna, 6. “This is all she’s going to get,” Pierce said. “I don’t have the income or the money to shop for Christmas. These are all very caring people.”
Hlawin and her three children were spending their first Christmas in Chicago after arriving earlier this year from a Burmese refugee camp in Thailand.
“We didn’t have money to go to school and no food,” Pygninwai, 14, explained. “My mother kept saying we had to learn English. That’s why we came to Chicago.”
Pygninwai and her sister, Hninnuwai, 12, and brother Noshin, 9, said they would wrap the dolls, games and Power Ranger they selected for themselves and open them on Christmas.
“I was very worried,” Hlawin said. “Now, I’m very happy.”
The realtors of the Chicago-area @properties realty firms donated 487 children’s toys. Parishioners from Edgewater’s Church of the Atonement donated over 600 sets of new children’s hats and mittens. The cadets at Rickover Naval Academy collected 400 new and practically new children’s books and delivered 800 cans of food. The students at Goudy Elementary School also held a food drive to replenish the food pantry.
“The big news is that the community came out for this,” said Tom Robb, executive director of Care for Real. “This is our largest Christmas. We’ve tried to double from what we did last year.”
Care for Real, a program of the Edgewater Community Council, provides food, household items, clothing and referrals to Edgewater residents who may otherwise not get the services they need from government agencies. A majority of clients live below or near the poverty line, including a large number of clients who rely on minimum wage jobs to support their families, seniors and refugees.
Since 2007, the number of clients seeking services has risen from 700 to 3,000. The past year has brought an influx of Iraqi refugees into the Edgewater community. Also, for the first time in the agency’s 35-year history, middle-aged persons, those in the 40-60 age group, outnumbered seniors who rely on Care for Real’s food pantry each month.
Robb said that North Side food pantries have been inundated in 2009, and saw no tapering off of service requests in the coming year.
“The area food pantries are being inundated,” Robb said. “We’re the barometer. I wish more policy makers took a look at food pantries because they would know what is happening with the economy.”
Care for Real 2009 Christmas Toy Distribution
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