Christmas Fund has touched many lives

The Garden Island will soon kick off an annual tradition that has allowed Kauai residents and visitors to make Christmas a little brighter for families facing a bleak holiday season.

The program was started in the early 1980s by Jean E. Holmes, long-time editor of The Garden Island.

Learning that members of the Zonta Club of Kauai were buying, wrapping and delivering gifts to needy families, Holmes decided to support their efforts by publishing stories about potential recipients and encouraging readers to get involved.

Initially, the newspaper handled everything, from writing the stories to collecting the donations, which were then turned over to Zonta for distribution.

But eventually, as donations increased, the program became an accounting nightmare and was in danger of being canceled. To keep it going, Zonta agreed to funnel donations through the club’s account which was already set up with non-profit status.

Since then, the Christmas Fund has been featured in The Garden Island every year.

Zonta works with several agencies who pick and screen potential recipients. Members write brief, often touching, stories about their plight and submit them to The Garden Island before Thanksgiving to be published.

“Agencies we worked with had to be social services organizations with 501(c)(3) status,” said Zonta’s official Christmas Fund spokeswoman, Yoshiko “Dimples” Kano.

Once invited to participate, agencies were selected for their timely response, commitment and interest. This year, Kano is working with nine agencies.

The stories published in The Garden Island are poignant and heart-warming. Readers have been touched by stories ranging from young mothers wanting nothing for themselves, just items for their children, to senior citizens in dire need of a warm jacket or blanket to keep them warm, or a radio to fill their lonely hours.

And people have responded to the appeal. Hundreds of donations totaling thousands of dollars have been received over the past three decades.

Visitors who happen to read the stories while vacationing here often send generous checks. Some request their donations be used for specific cases featured in the paper.

There are regular contributors, like Coco Palms’ Grace Guslander, who sent donations year after year while she was alive. Some regular donors often make a game of trying to be the first to contribute each year.

However, when the economy slumps, donations also drop significantly. In the year 2000, the Christmas Fund was in serious trouble.

“Many Zonta members had left the island, and the Christmas Fund was kind of falling apart,” Kano said.

She and co-chair Joy Miura resurrected and rejuvenated it, and response has been great ever since.

K-mart and Walmart gift certificates rather than items are now given to families to buy what they need.

“We picked those two stores because they offer most of what our families ask for: groceries, dry goods and clothing. Our thinking is the certificates allow people to buy clothing and household goods for themselves. They don’t need someone to go and buy them,” Kano says. “For once in their lives, they can buy what they want.”

Kano is very careful to keep identities of the recipients completely confidential. She also tries to emphasize that without The Garden Island newspaper, there would be no Zonta Christmas Fund.

“I have tried to make people understand this, that our co-partner is The Garden Island newspaper.”

Donations of checks or money is what Zonta asks for. They discourage donations of items requested in the stories. However, occasionally some are received and Kauai Economic Opportunity stores and distributes these for Zonta.

The certificates are given to the agencies early in December. Grateful recipients have sent many touching thank you letters to Zonta and The Garden Island.

The Garden Island/Zonta Christmas Fund is a tradition worth keeping. The Garden Island newspaper and Editor Bill Buley, as well as anyone who has ever reached into their heart and shared whatever they could spare, should be proud that they are part of something that will hopefully help even more people for years to come.

Aloha.

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Rita De Silva is former editor of The Garden Island and a Kapaa resident.