Holiday Giving
Every year at the beginning of September we start gearing up for our annual “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” holiday giving drive. The Southbury Social Services Department identifies families in the community who are in need of help providing gifts and basic necessities for their children during the winter holiday season. Teaming up with Southbury residents, churches, schools, organizations, and businesses, we provide a full set of new, warm winter clothing, a winter coat and boots, as well as toys, games, books, and holiday necessities to each of the children identified. The program ensures that families experience the joy and spirit of the holidays by making the burden on parents lighter and bringing connection to those who might otherwise be isolated.
We also provide funding for the Southbury Senior Center’s Annual Holiday Cheer Baskets. These “Theme/Experience” gift baskets are given to seniors identified by the Southbury Senior Services Department who may be isolated and/or in need of some holiday happiness.
Back-to-School Shoes
Each August we provide families who utilize Social Services of Southbury with new shoes/sneakers to start the school year. By removing the financial burden of new footwear, we aim to reduce stress for families and ensure that children can feel confident and participate fully in school and extracurricular activities. We provide approximately 100 pairs of sneakers for 50 families with students ranging in age from 5 to 18 years old.
Our Work Year-Round
While the Holiday Giving Drive is our most visible effort, we are here throughout the year to help neighbors in our community.
When Southbury Social Services, churches, or schools become aware of a specific emergency need for a child or household in our community, we are the organization to whom they send referrals to help bridge the family’s budget gap. Items we assist with include:
- Unexpected medical or housing expenses.
- Unforeseen repair needs for car, appliance, or home.
- Fees for school activities like band, sports, or field trips.
- Fees for Parks and Recreation programs that afford kids a safe and enriching summer daytime activity while parents are at work.
- Other exigent expenses that families may face.
In addition to helping individual families, Southbury Helping Hands supports our town’s Food Bank by contributing funds to the summer lunch program for children. Outreach also includes providing churches with gas and food gift cards for parishioners who need assistance.
How We Do It
The generosity of individuals, schools, churches, community organizations, fundraisers, workplace matching-giving programs, and local small businesses all help to make this year-round community assistance possible.
For our year-round work, we welcome the following types of donations at any time:
- One-time monetary gifts
- Recurring monetary gifts