Couple experiencing challenges with work turn to Goodfellows for their 4 kids

The promising life Angela thought she was moving into when she relocated from California five years ago took a turn for the worse. Suddenly, she was battling to pay bills and keep herself and her family sheltered.

“The first year here was pretty good. I had a 10-year-old boy and a 5-year-old daughter,” she said. “I was working at a day care for almost two years. I did have a third baby, and when I gave birth I kept working.”

Angela now has four children, ranging in age from a year and a half to 15.

Then, all of a sudden, her hours were cut and she was bringing home around $75 per week. She would later lose even that job as cuts continued.

Her husband was experiencing similar challenges with his work. Their car got repossessed. They stopped paying credit cards and bills were all backed up to the point where electricity and water service were interrupted.

In the midst of all of this, having any money left over for holiday presents for her children was a virtual impossibility.

Her sister-in-law told her about the Goodfellow Fund. The Star-Telegram charity has been helping folks just like her for more than a century, and is once again this year giving $100 gift cards from Old Navy to children from families in need.

“Honestly it’s a blessing,” Angela said. “Hopefully one day I’ll be blessed and give back to my community.”

About the Goodfellow Fund

The story on the Goodfellow website describes its beginning as an offshoot of the first newspaper charity drive in the United States, started by the Chicago Tribune on Dec. 10, 1909. A Chicago city attorney wrote a letter challenging his friends to donate the money they would have spent on holiday partying to charity.

A couple of years later, the Advertising Club of Fort Worth staged the first local Goodfellow campaign. On the day after Thanksgiving in 1912, Publisher Amon G. Carter brought the tradition to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

To donate online and find out more, visit goodfellowfundfw.com/donate. To donate with a check, send checks made out to the Goodfellow Fund to P.O. Box 149, Fort Worth, TX, 76101.

This story was originally published December 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM.