Worried families turn to the Press Herald Toy Fund for holiday help

For a family of four in the Midcoast, it’s the electric bill.

“My light bill has gone up and we have been struggling with making ends meet,” the mother of two young daughters wrote to the Press Herald Toy Fund. “We could really use the help.”

The single mother of an 8-year-old boy in central Maine says it was car trouble that pushed them over the financial edge.

“My car has broke down and been in the shop for a month and this Christmas is going to be really hard for me to buy for my son,” she wrote.

For many others, it’s rising rents and threats of eviction. More than a few are already living in cars or emergency shelters. Parents battling terminal illness. Families shattered by domestic violence. Grandparents collecting Social Security suddenly caring for young grandchildren.

Worried families are turning to the Press Herald Toy Fund for help just as others before them have for more than 70 years. And parents are sharing stories of how forces beyond their control are making it impossible to provide the holiday gifts their children are already dreaming about.

The Toy Fund uses donations from readers of the Press Herald, Sun Journal and Times Record to buy toys and books for children whose families are experiencing hardship. Many of the children are themselves going through traumatic experiences and are especially in need of a measure of joy around the holidays.

In the coming weeks, readers will donate enough money to provide gifts to thousands of children in southern, Midcoast and central Maine. We know this because it has happened every year since organizers began asking in 1949.

The founders of the toy fund might be surprised that the charity has lasted so long and grown so large. But they predicted many decades ago that the community would never fail to support the fund as long as children needed help.

“The Toy Fund is such a wonderful program,” a mother of two wrote to the fund this month. “I would be very grateful for even just a few toys for each of my girls to help them feel a little more magic on Christmas morning. Thank you so much.”

To make a donation online or apply for assistance, go to pressherald.com/toy-fund.

Checks made out to the Portland Press Herald Toy Fund may be mailed to 295 Gannett Drive, South Portland, ME 04106.

Names of donors are published in the Press Herald, the Sun Journal and the Times Record unless a donor wishes to remain anonymous.

TODAY’S DONATIONS:

Merry Christmas – Arlene Rand $100
Joseph Long $300
Herbert Taylor $25
In loving memory of David Poirier – Shirley M. Poirier $40
Happy holidays! The Eckersley-Ray family $250
Carolyn Pollock $500
Merry Christmas, in honor of my friends at Dock Fore – David Gao $100
Bob and Ann Rossi $40
Happy holidays! The Bopp family $150
Because Christmas is for kids! Peter Brown $175
Noel & Judi Tracy $100
In Memory of Robert P. and Carolyn B. Snyder – Robert B. Snyder $100
In memory of Robert and Norma Foster – Dottie Kelleher $100
In loving memory of Anna Trouvalis – her family $350
All the best – Alex Griese $1,000