Charities: how you can help during the holidays

With holiday shopping in full swing, you may wonder how you can help out others during the season of giving. We got in touch with a few Wallingford-based charities to see what they most need during the holidays.

Employees at Solid Ground (1501 N. 45th St.), which runs nearly 26 programs help over 38,000 households each year to overcome poverty, said they could use:

1. Gift cards ($25 each) for our Adopt-a-Family Holiday Gift Program.
We have over 600 children and parents, each of whom gets a gift card so
that families can buy presents for their kids for the holidays. We also
accept unwrapped gifts as well. Contact person on this is Indiigo Klyne
who is at (206) 694-6825.

2. Non-perishable groceries for our grocery delivery program for
homebound seniors and people with disabilities. Items like pasta, tuna,
peanut butter…these are wonderful! Contact person for the grocery
deliveries is Ugochi Alams who is at 694-6731.

3. Cash donations, which can be directed to any and all of our 26
programs providing food, shelter counseling and advocacy.

Jake Weber, executive director at the food bank and family center Familyworks (also at (1501 N. 45th St.) said they could use bus tickets, warm large (wool) socks and diapers to distribute during the month of December. He also pointed out that Familyworks has tags on trees at Izilla Toys, University Village and Phinney Neighborhood Association for gifts for children from their food bank for the holidays.

You can donate clothing, kitchen items, and books to Assistance League of Seattle, which runs the Bargain Fair Thrift Shop (1415 N. 45th St.). Proceeds from the shop fund Operation School Bell, a program that supplies basic wardrobes to over 1000 schoolchildren.

Know of more Wallingford-based charities that could use help this season? Please share the information in the comments.