Making scrooge smile: a Durham program creates holiday happiness for hundreds of needy children.

• Author: Duckwall, Jane
• Position: GRATEFUL GIVING

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For several years, Dana Allen and about 100 co-workers at Duke University Health System have pooled their resources to buy Christmas gifts for dozens of families with young children. They give to Share Your Christmas, a program which is even older: Durham County's Department of Social Services began pairing sponsors such as Allen with families in need in 1975, making it one of the longest-running of dozens of such programs across North Carolina.

"Everybody always says Christmas is for kids, and I really believe that," says Allen, a customer-service team leader. "I couldn't imagine being a child and not getting something." The Triangle Nonprofit & Volunteer Leadership Center coordinates the county program. The Herald-Sun newspaper supports it by printing brief profiles of families needing sponsors, and about 200 volunteers donate more than 4,000 hours every year to make the program a success.

DSS Director Michael Becketts describes Durham as "a place where there's extreme opportunity and wealth, but there's a significant level of poverty." He adds, "We're at about 27-28% of children living in poverty. We have 43,000 in Durham County who are receiving food and nutrition services and 52,000 getting Medicaid. And so when we look at those numbers, they aren't going down. They are either holding steady or slowly increasing."

Last year, about 400 individuals, families, nonprofits and businesses

sponsored 1,200 families, says Adrienne Clark, the center's director of special programs. Another 211 made donations without becoming sponsors. Kim Shaw, executive director for the center, says the value of gifts isn't tallied, but the center asks sponsors to spend at least $50 per recipient. Multiplying that by last year's 3,087 recipients equals $154,350, she says. "However, we estimate that the real number is probably at least double that amount.... Last year, some donors gave items such as microwaves, stoves, bikes, etc., that were all well over this $50 minimum."

All program recipients are DSS clients, Clark says. "The social workers refer them to us, and we match them with sponsors.... They're all vetted and qualified through DSS first. It's...