The holidays are known to be an exciting time filled with joy and spirit throughout families, loved ones, friends and more. Many are lucky enough to walk down the stairs on a chilly morning and see the tree glowing with glitter ornaments and the ambience of colorful lights- but what lies under said tree is often the most enjoyable part, especially for the youth. However, there is an opposing side who don’t always get that privilege.

Donna Tobin is the director of development at The Care Service. Tobin helps with the marketing, communications, fundraising, donor cultivation and a majority of the programs and assistance that does not occur hands-on with their clients.

“In December is when mental health challenges usually become worse,” Tobin said. “Suicide rates go up, domestic Violence rates go up, and a lot that has to due with the financial stress that comes with Christmas.”

During the holidays of 2023 over 1,000 individuals requested the assistance of a program that goes by the name Adopt-A- Family. The Adopt-A-Family program is run by the Care Service of St. Joachim & Ann.

The Care Service is an organization that’s been around since 1981. The Care Service stands by their mission: “to serve those in crisis and to prevent homelessness and hunger”. They offer an extended amount of help to those who meet the expectations- some include Street Outreach, The Food Pantry, Housing Assistance, Adopt-A-Family and more. Their motto being “planting the seed of hope and breaking the chain of despair” reflects their exigence to help out as many people as they can, allowing everyone to have hope including, but not limited, to children, parents, disabled and elderly.

“Sometimes people might call because they don’t have any food today, and they’ll tell you, that’s what the problem is,” Tobin said. “But then, really when they come in, they find out that maybe their electricity is about to be shut off, and maybe they’re about to be evicted because they didn’t pay their rent. So that way, we’re kind of able to catch more things before it gets worse.”

The Care Service acknowledges the holidays aren’t always easy, therefore they established a program to help those children and families in need. The program includes all of the families receiving assistance by The Care Service as well extended agencies and schools that help them reach out and help as many as possible. The program allows for families with kids of all ages to create Christmas gift wish lists and give them the opportunity to receive at least a sliver of joy that other families take for granted. Families create their wish list between summer and fall, giving enough time to receive their gifts by Christmas. Gifts also may consist of handmade bracelets by KOE. Arelene Kearns, the activities director at Francis Howell North says even the small gifts like bracelets and small donations can mean a lot.

“It’s just nice to, you know, any kind of recognition or something that somebody’s thinking of them,” Kearns said.

Tobin shares that the amount of calls the service has received regarding requests for help has nearly tripled from this previous year. It’s assumed that the reasoning for this is most likely due to rent inflation, the change in the housing market and the inflation of food and fuel prices.

“But when you ask them what kind of help they needed, rent stayed about the same but utilities went up significantly and food went up from 4% needing food to 11%,” Tobin said.

Although, these current national issues aren’t just affecting the amount of people needing help, but are also limiting the amount of help that’s able to be provided.

“But even with our food pantry, the number of donations are down because the price of food has gotten much higher,” Tobin said.

Despite the fact that there isn’t much The Care Service can do to control the current prices of food, fuel and more, they continue to strive to generate ways to help those in need. The Care Service building in Saint Charles is currently renting spaces to other alike organizations to continue to reach the less fortunate and grow funds to allow them to continue their multiple programs. Their exigence and urge to help the community through their hardships is just another step further to creating a loving and safe environment.

“Our community is very generous, so it seems almost as often as times get more difficult, people become more generous,” Tobin said.