Mom starting over asks Goodfellows to help give her kids a good Christmas

Andrea moved her children from Tennessee to Texas to escape bad living conditions in a dangerous neighborhood. What she didn’t want to do was leave Christmas behind as well.

“The area we lived in was a bad area and I needed to be closer to family so I can get help with my kids,” she said. “I have SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), but I am currently changing over my SNAP to Texas.”

Basically, Andrea is starting over. While she is receiving some help from family — for example, she’s living in her sister’s house — it’s hard to see the holiday season arrive, look in your children’s faces and have nothing to give them from Santa or yourself.

That’s where Goodfellows comes in. They can help her children and many others experience a good Christmas. The Star-Telegram charity is looking to help 12,000 children in need in Tarrant County this season by providing a $50 tax-free gift certificate for each child for new trendy clothing from Old Navy Stores.

New clothing makes anyone feel better. With them comes a more positive attitude, and along with these clothes comes the knowledge that someone cares to help change a life.

About the Goodfellows Fund

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

To find out more, visit goodfellowfundfw.com. The new post office box for donations and correspondence is P.O. Box 149, Fort Worth, TX. 76101.