Can Cowboy Santa avoid the Grinch? City seeks suitor to keep Fort Worth charity alive
On the day before Christmas, Carol Brown scurried around the Cowboy Santa warehouse gathering big green bags of toys for parents in crisis.
Brown, one of the charity’s founders, was also in crisis mode.
Brown said she was told she needed to start packing the warehouse in anticipation of a move, but she didn’t know where she was moving or when.
For the past few weeks, Brown had been busy preparing for Christmas. People were still coming in on Christmas Eve to collect toys, books and sports equipment so their children would find presents under the tree on Christmas Day. Several thousand families are served by the charity every year, Brown said.
Brown said she was informed in November that the charity, which started in 1981, needed to find a new partner to replace about $200,000 in funding from the city of Fort Worth.
“I have no guarantees and that’s what bothers me,” Brown said Monday. “It was like Friday, I had grown men here crying. The uncertainty of what’s going to happen just gets you. ”
In September the Cowboy Santa board recommended that the charity join forces with another organization and the city is assisting with that search, said Aubrey Thagard, Fort Worth Neighborhood Services director.
“The majority of the funding for Cowboy Santa has been coming from the city and we’ve been working on a way for Cowboy Santa to become more independent,” Thagard said. “The city hopes to see a future Cowboy Santa that is a more independent and autonomous organization.”
This is a transitional process and nothing has been formalized, Thagard said. No date had been set for Cowboy Santa to vacate its warehouse and the amount of funding the charity gets from the city has not changed going into the new budget year.
Maria Manzella, Cowboy Santa board president, said the program has always enjoyed the support of city officials, but was informed that program funding from the city would eventually end. Manzella said she informed Cowboy Santa workers but needed to get more details from city officials to determine exactly when the program would cease getting financial support and when they’d have to move.
Until then, the future of the program is uncertain, Manzella said.
“We do not know what our options are going to be,” she said.
The charity receives enthusiastic support from the community, from the Texas Rangers baseball club and from other businesses, said Sonia Singleton, assistant neighborhood services director.
But all of those involved acknowledge that it has been difficult to attract the private funding that it takes to run an organization the size and scope of the Cowboy Santa program, Thagard said.
“The city believes this is a worthwhile charity,” Thagard said. “There was a recognition by all involved that things need to change and move in a different direction and that we would work through those details as we can. What we are trying to do is make sure that Cowboy Santa continues.”
Cleveland Harris, 54, a community activist who said he grew up in Butler Place Apartments, said the community needs charities that have a history and roots in it.
Donnell Ballard, who was also at the Cowboy Santa warehouse on Christmas Eve, said his son got his first bicycle from the Cowboy Santa program.
“I got my first go-cart from a place like this,” Harris said. “I looked forward to getting toys from a place like this.”
Cowboy Santa is the only charity parents can call on Christmas Eve and receive toys when they realize there are no Christmas presents under the tree and no money to purchase anything, according to the charity’s volunteers.
There were also concerns about what type of conditions might be imposed in a partnership agreement between Cowboy Santa and a prospective organization.
Whether a year-round warehouse would survive a merger between charities is being questioned, Brown said. Whether the charity would be allowed to continue to support birthday parties for homeless children is also being questioned, Brown said.
“Cowboy Santa does not know whether it will continue to exist,” Brown said. “It’s been real hard these last few days thinking that perhaps this will be the last year we will be able to do this.”
This story was originally published December 26, 2018 at 3:31 PM with the headline "Can Cowboy Santa avoid the Grinch? City seeks suitor to keep Fort Worth charity alive."
