Donations for St. Vincent De Paul were unloaded at the Vista Radio headquarters all day today (Wednesday).
Food, toys, diapers, other supplies and $9,000 in cash were all brought in on day one of the two-day fundraiser.
Bernie Gould, a 42-year volunteer with St. Vincent’s who was on location helping take donations for 12 hours today, said “It was really, really heartwarming.”
“The generosity, the enthusiasm, and the smiles as people gave us the donations. They were feeling good about it, and it is a big blessing to the work we will do over the next couple of weeks,” she said.
Last year’s Community Christmas raised about $40,000 worth of cash and goods, but Gould said the donations received today exceeded the normal 1st day of Community Christmas.
“I think people are being very generous this year. They realize there are a lot more people struggling,” she said. “Those that can give have been very, very generous.”
Gould used to work with students with special needs in her career with School District 57.
She said multiple former students came out to donate, one was in her class 35 years ago.
“A gentleman who came in made a cash donation and told us about 15 years ago he used St. Vincent’s on an ongoing basis. Now his life is turned around and he wants to give,” he said.
Gould said, on average, St. Vincent’s feeds up to 125 people breakfast, 150 people lunch, and over 100 people dinner – every day of the week.
“It is a sad statistic, I wish these people didn’t need to come to us, but we are privileged to do it,” she said.
Donations are accepted at the Vista Radio (94.3 the GOAT, Country 97 FM, and MyPGNow) office at the corner of Ferry and Ospika from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday) as well.
Gould said donations can take any form, “a gift, a small bag of food, cash is always great for us… we stay in touch with grocery stores, sometimes we can get a dollar stretched to $1.30 or $1.40 over and above the average person when we buy in bulk.”