Goodfellows is there to help family after hard times follow them to U.S.

Olga and her family relocated to the United States from Guanajuato, Mexico, a decade ago in hopes of a better life. Instead, hard times have followed them.

And while she said she and her husband can handle the difficulties, she cries thinking about her four children doing without during the holidays. Since she became unemployed, her husband is the sole provider in the family, but it is just enough to cover household expenses.

The Goodfellow Fund is there to help families such as Olga’s. The Star-Telegram charity has been doing so for more than a century, and once again this year is giving away $100 gift cards to Old Navy this holiday season.

“I’m so excited to see my children’s happy faces,” Olga said. “This has truly been a huge help to my family.

“Thanks to this help, my children will have clothes to wear on December 25th. Thank you so much, and Merry Christmas.”

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.