Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2009 / Archdiocesan Adopt-a-Family hopes to help 200 families
Archdiocesan Adopt-a-Family hopes to help 200 families
by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published November 20, 2009
Detroit - Donations are running well behind last year's pace to the annual archdiocesan effort to provide some assistance to needy families at Christmastime.
Although there is still time for sufficient donations to come in before the deadline, Lory McGlinnen, who oversees the archdiocesan Adopt-a-Family program, is nevertheless concerned that donations as of last Friday amounted to only $1,100.
Last year the program received $70,000 in donations to distribute among 203 families proposed by parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Detroit.
Now in its 20th year, the program has collected and distributed $1.2 million to 4,341 families during its first 19 years of operation.
To help
Checks can be made out to Archdiocese of Detroit, with Adopt-a-Family (and, if desired, the number of a particular family) on the memo line, and should be sent to Adopt-a-Family, c/o Archdiocese of Detoit, 305 Michigan Ave. - 10th Floor, Detroit 48226.
| "The average gift to a family has been $283, although some years it has been as high as $600, depending on how much was donated and the number of families in a given year," said McGlinnen, who is associate director of the archdiocesan Department of Parish life and Services.
Information on the situations of families in need of assistance is sent in by parish Christian Service directors. The identities of the families are kept confidential, but a thumbnail description of some of those situations is being published in this issue of The Michigan Catholic. (See Page 9.)
Given Michigan's high rate of unemployment and foreclosures, McGlinnen said it is not surprising that so many of the requests are for money to meet "just the basic family needs, such as food, clothing and prescriptions."
Donors may direct their donations to meet the needs of a particular family or just to be apportioned among all the needy families (and even earmarked donations are distributed generally once a particular family's needs are met).
McGlinnen said her office was still sorting through the information on prospective recipients as parishes continued to fax in information to meet last Friday's deadline for nominating families.
"We anticipate about 200 families to be 'adopted,'" she said.
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