By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Starting today, residents can go into the AFL-CIO Community Service offices, or online, and Adopt a Family in need this Christmas.
AFL-CIO Executive Director Nichi Seckinger says already nearly 400 applications have come in for the program this year, which is a lot for this time of year.
Seckinger says the hope is people are being proactive and applying early, but says the reality is, with the state of the economy, they could see more people
“And we usually rule of thumb is the amount of applications we get in the first two weeks, it’s a crazy way to do it, but multiply that by three and that’s about how many applications we get for the entire season,” Seckinger tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “And if that is the case, if by the end of this week we have 425, we’ll be looking at over 1,200 families, and all my fingers are crossed that that doesn’t happen because that would set a record for us, but they are coming it at a pretty rapid rate this year.”
Seckinger says it’s just been the perfect storm as of late, with the recent federal government shutdown and the economy, that the number could end up higher that past years
“Knowing that all those things are in flux going into the holidays, we know people are struggling, I think people who normally don’t have a problem paying bills are struggling some right now,” Seckinger explains. “So, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see an increase in people applying and people that normally have normally not asked for help in the past being the ones who are tacking onto our numbers this year.”
Seckinger says fear over food stamp benefits could have played a factor. The recent bill signed by President Trump reopened the federal government and will fund SNAP until September 2026.
Seckinger says the estimated cost to adopt a child 11 or older is $75 to $100. The average cost for a child under the age of 10 is $50.
Seckinger says under the circumstances of comparing to people’s normal bills, spending that much money to have an impact on a kid, it’s worth it
“Sometimes these are the only new things they get all year, sometimes some of them haven’t celebrated Christmas every single year, we see that quite a bit with kids,” Seckinger says. “A parent will apply and say I didn’t apply last year and we ended up not being able to do Christmas, so I made sure to apply this year, and that’s the last thing you want to think of is that there’s kids out there that don’t get to celebrate Christmas and there’s nothing under the tree when they do.”
To find out more information about how to help with Adopt a Family, you can go online to AFL-CIO Community Services website, or into the offices.
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.
