Share the Season extends the deadline to give, get help

In its 20th year, Share the Season, a financial relief community program, is extending its deadlines for donors and applicants and is also expanding the definition of who it helps.

Share the Season is an annual partnership program of the Wichita Community Foundation, the Salvation Army and The Wichita Eagle. The Wichita Community Foundation collects and disperses the money, the Salvation Army screens applicants and the Eagle runs daily stories through Christmas about people who are helped and runs ads listing the names of donors.

While donors can give year-round, the program’s major fundraising drive kicks off Thanksgiving Day each year. In the past, both the drive and the application deadlines fell around mid-December.

This year’s deadlines have been extended to Jan. 17, according to organizers.

“We just thought this would be a way to continue helping people through the Christmas holiday,” said Shelly Prichard, president and CEO of the Wichita Community Foundation.

Plus, donors have more time to give, said Jill Skaggs, the Salvation Army’s director of emergency social services.

Last year, $248,000 was raised and more than 230 families were helped, according to the Wichita Community Foundation. In its first year, the program raised more than $72,000 and helped 100 families. Since it started in 2000, Share the Season has raised $3.6 million and has helped about 3,600 families.

Each family gets one-time help in paying bills, such as medical bills, utilities and more. Payments are made directly to the vendor or company.

“We don’t provide toys or food since there are plenty of other organizations that do that,” Prichard said. “We help pay the bills.”

This year, the program is expanding to include recently retired seniors and veterans receiving benefits, not just those who’ve been recently laid off or who basically live paycheck to paycheck, according to Skaggs.

The families who apply for the program tend to be those who are working to make ends meet but some type of loss or life event like a layoff or an illness triggers financial upheaval in their lives, said Prichard.

“There’s no judgment,” Prichard said. “This is to help people in their darkest hours.”

One of the families being helped this year is a Wichita couple who suffered the devastating loss of their baby daughter. The grief itself over losing their newborn was overwhelming, but they also faced potential loss of their home when they fell behind on utility bills and car payments in the aftermath.

“There are days where I feel ‘did this really happen,’” said the recipient.

The couple wishes to remain anonymous but wanted to express their gratitude for the help Share the Season provided. The Share the Season fund helped with four utility bills and a car payment.

“We had enough to cover rent, but nothing left over for the rest of the bills,” said the woman, who is now a paraeducator at a Wichita public school. Her husband works at a local restaurant franchise. “We were needing to make decisions and we started thinking that we would look at just keeping up with the car payment since we have only one car and we needed that to get to and from work.”

The pair had gotten behind because of lost income during the final weeks of the pregnancy and the weeks after the baby’s birth. The expectant mom developed preeclampsia in the final two weeks of her pregnancy and had to quit work and be put on bed rest.

“I had a rough delivery, too,” she said, since she went into shock and hemorrhaged, requiring a longer hospital stay. Five days after the baby was born, the newborn was airlifted from Ascension Via Christi St. Joseph in Wichita to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. The baby died two weeks after being born with a form of dysplasia, or abnormal development.

The couple had moved to Wichita from Florida in 2018 to be closer to family and to take advantage of a lower cost of living, the recipient said. In Florida, the woman had worked three jobs.

With their new jobs in Wichita, “we could cover our bills but when something like this happens,” she said referring to the income loss, “it gets you.”

HOW TO GET HELP

People can apply for assistance at www.sharetheseason.org and at the Salvation Army headquarters, 350 N. Market. If you have questions about applying, call 316-263-2769 or visit www.sharetheseason.org. The application deadline is noon Jan. 17.

HOW TO GIVE HELP

Donors can send contributions to Share the Season, Wichita Community Foundation, 301 N. Main, Suite 100, Wichita, KS 67202. Donations can also be made online at www.sharetheseason.org.

This story was originally published November 28, 2019 at 5:01 AM.