For the 7th year in a row, no eligible family in need will be turned away from Woonsocket's Adopt-a-Family.
Despite serious concern just a week ago that families were going to be turned away, as of Monday, December 7, the Board of Directors agreed to provide for all eligible families who applied.
Although not every family will be sponsored by an outside donor, every child will receive a bag of gifts including clothing and toys.
On Tuesday, letters to 1,118 families with 2,310 children will be going out advising them of their acceptance into the program. Each of these children will benefit from this local charity now in its 27th year of providing for needy children in Woonsocket.
After almost daily updates to board members by Program Coordinator Sandra Soares, on Saturday an email went out telling them that the number of children without donors was down to 302 from 590 only four days earlier!
In those four days, telephone messages and emails kept coming in from people wanting to help. Matching continued daily and wish lists were going via email, regular mail and fax. That response brought the number of children still in need down to a manageable number for the Board to commit to providing for with or without donors.
Those 302 children in 176 families will be taken care of with funds from the program's treasury. The funds come from donors who often can't commit to shopping for a family but still want to support the program. And often donors will send a check in addition to adopting a few children.
"I had tears in my eyes when I read that email," said long-time Board member Rhea Powers. "We can certainly handle that many children," said President Pauline Belisle, "that's not many more than we provided for last year." In 2008, 245 children had no sponsors but in the eleventh hour during their Distribution Week, volunteers shopped, wrapped & tagged so that no one was disappointed.
"After six years of being able to say YES to everyone, it was going to be a difficult decision to have to turn some families away this year, we are thrilled that we won't have to", said Program Coordinator Soares.
Although it's too late to adopt, if you would still like to help, you can make a donation to Adopt-a-Family, Inc., P.O. Box 7665, Cumberland, RI 02864. AAF is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and all donations are tax deductible as allowed by law.
