Goodfellow Fund seeks volunteers for holiday charity that provides clothes to kids

Each Christmas, the Goodfellow Fund provides clothes to thousands of Tarrant County schoolchildren. The backbone of the effort is the volunteers — more than 100 who return every year to support the Star-Telegram’s charity that gives each qualifying child a $100 Old Navy gift card.

Still, the Goodfellow Fund could use more help to interview the applicants. Volunteers also verify documents and fold more than 6,000 appointment letters that are sent to applicants.

“While 100 seems like a healthy number, not all the group can commit their time each day of the six-week campaign,” said Richard Greene, executive director of the Goodfellow Fund. “Some would have health or family issues or other conflicts that may prevent them from helping. We can certainly use additional volunteers.”

The Star-Telegram’s Goodfellow Fund began 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. On the day after Thanksgiving in 1912, Publisher Amon G. Carter brought the tradition to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Four-hour morning and afternoon shifts are available. People who speak Spanish and Arabic are needed. The applicant interview run from first week of November through the first week in December. There are no interviews on Thanksgiving week.

Volunteer information and a form for signing up can be found on the Goodfellow Fund website.

Applicant interviews are held at the Travis Avenue Baptist Church, 800 W. Berry St., Fort Worth, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, 5819 W Pleasant Ridge Road, Arlington, on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Volunteers say they keep coming back because they love the personal interaction with the families and seeing their joy and tears of appreciation, Greene said.

A husband-and-wife team told the fund recently: “We both felt pulled toward an organization with the goal of helping school children. They are society’s most vulnerable and least able, and more importantly, our future,” she said. “Meeting families that want to give their children whatever they can speaks to my faith that there is hope and the desire to rise above their current situation. Providing a gift card to a major store to a parent allows them choice without any hint of embarrassment or sense of hiding the handout.”