Adopt-a-Child program spreads holiday cheer
to more than 1,450 Cincinnati elementary students
More than 1,450 students at Bond Hill Academy, Carson School, Evanston Academy and Hays-Porter School received Christmas stockings and gift bags filled with goodies Dec. 20, 2012, as part of FamiliesFORWARD’s Adopt-a-Child program.
Cincinnati Bell Volunteers, an employee-related group, provided 805 handmade, filled-to-the-brim stockings for pre-kindergartners through first-graders, while volunteers and donors put together 655 gift bags for second- through sixth-graders. Seventh- and eight-graders were given pizza parties.
Dorothea Goode Long, a volunteer who heads up the effort for FamiliesFORWARD with another volunteer, Richard Adams, calls Adopt-a-Child “a wonderful idea for sharing Christmas.” Now retired, Long, 64, who also tutors at Bond Hill Academy, says: “I have a need to do things with children. I always want to be helpful and kind to children, to work with them. If I see they have a need, I try to help them.”
Long, who grew up in Selma, Ala., and moved after her Knoxville College graduation to Cincinnati to take a job with Kroger Co., says she has been involved with the Adopt-a-Child project for 14 years, since its inception in 1999. She later had a successful career as an audit manager with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and believes in giving back to the community.
“I came from a very meager family,” Long says. “There were eight of us, and my mother made sacrifices to give things to us. I was the first of my family of eight to go to college.”
The Adopt-a-Child program was the brainchild of the FamiliesFORWARD board of trustees. Board member Karen O’Maley; Adams, a retired Procter & Gamble executive and also now a FamiliesFORWARD board member; and Long worked as leaders of Adopt-a-Child in the first 10 years, and the program just kept growing. Adams, also a member of the Evanston Academy Local School Decision Making Committee and the Cincinnatus Association civic group, volunteered to deliver the Adopt-a-Child gifts to the homes of children in the early days of the program.
The Bell Volunteers sew the stockings throughout the year, then collect donations to buy items to fill the stockings. At the same time that Bell employees are working on the stockings, Long is constantly on the lookout for good deals on toys, school supplies and other items to fill the gift bags. Her daughter, Jacquetta Greenlea, and granddaughter, Yiyara, help her make the late-night and early-morning Black Friday sales.
In the past, “my house sometimes became a warehouse,” Long says with a laugh. “I could not put my car in the garage.” The Freestore Foodbank then began providing storage and distribution space for Adopt-a-Child in 2010.
Long, of Bond Hill, tries to make sure each gift bag has a toy, something artsy and at least one other item, which could be gloves, a blanket or school supplies.
Long says a number of groups donate money and gifts, and/or volunteer their time: Cincinnati Country Day School, Donnellon McCarthy Inc., the FamiliesFORWARD board of trustees, Messer Construction, Rhodia Inc., University of Cincinnati One Stop Student Services and Zonta Club of Cincinnati. Also, Project Linus provides 200 hand-sewn blankets for the children.
“Dorothea does a fantastic job with Adopt-a-Child,” Deborah Mariner Allsop, executive director/CEO of FamiliesFORWARD, says. “She is so dedicated, and the children get so excited when they get their stockings and gift bags. We would just like to thank everyone involved for the joy they bring to these kids each year.”
—Bill Ferguson Jr.
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