Donations up at Emergency Aid of Boulder City

Heather Cory

With wagons full of donated food, Mary Jo Zapolski, a Grace Christian Academy teacher, leads her class to Emergency Aid on Friday. With over 200 requests for Thanksgiving baskets, the students wanted to do their part in feeding the homeless and needy.

By Cassie Tomlin

Monday, Nov. 24, 2008 | 5 p.m.

Boulder City Donations

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This year, as need for help to get through the holidays grew, so did donations to Emergency Aid, directors said.

Local food drives and residents with checkbooks this month bailed the nonprofit out of its season of highest demand ever — double last year's.

"This is the worst I've ever seen it in my lifetime," Sue McCullough, a longtime director said. "Donations in the past couple weeks have been wonderful. We're in such bad shape, it helped us to not have to not have to find another way."

Since 1966, the volunteer group helps anybody who needs it with groceries, rent, bus passes and Thanksgiving dinner.

This year, they'd gone through their savings and even cashed a certificate of deposit by the time much-needed help for the helpers came through.

Last week, solid lines filled Emergency Aid's food pantry, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power building, well past the noon closing time.

On Monday, directors and volunteers delivered about 200 Thanksgiving baskets to needy families — cardboard boxes stuffed with canned vegetables, cranberry sauce, dressing, a turkey or a ham, and fixings for pies, cakes and puddings. Before that, they'd sent about 50 boxes to Quail Ridge Manor apartments for elderly.

The food came from boxes at banks, churches, schools, the library, and from the trunks of neighbors in town.

But McCullough said the work won't be over until Thanksgiving Day — Emergency Aid has no deadlines for the help it will give.

"This is our biggest batch, so it's going to be very hectic between now and that day," she said Friday, a day before the group assembled most of the boxes.

Directors will be working until Christmas Day to make sure children get presents and families have food as well, McCullough said.

Volunteers next month will offer help to families with children, making sure not to miss any in need, she said. "When it comes to kids, everybody wants to help."

Christmas Angel Tree will be at Boulder Dam Credit Union and Boulder City Library next month. Residents can pick a tag and return the corresponding present to Emergency Aid by Dec. 20.

Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or cassie.tomlin@hbcpub.com.