FOCUS: Helping S.C.’s flood victims over the holidays

By Steve Skardon  |  The circumstances of many destitute South Carolinians this holiday season are among the most distressing since Hurricane Hugo.  The aftermath of massive flooding, broken dams, and swollen rivers has left thousands in the Midlands and Lowcountry displaced and in chaos as they face the holiday season.

Skardon

Assistance from both government and non-profit agencies is slow, and many of these families cannot expect to be in back in their own stable living situations for another six to eight months.

The effects of this netherworld weigh heavily on children, especially with Christmas only weeks away. Many of them have been forced to leave their friends and neighborhoods and sleep on the floors of generous family members, while their parents struggle to make ends meet.

This year, our Families Helping Families initiatives in the Lowcountry and the Midlands have been expanded to include large numbers of these displaced families. Many of them have been referred from our Community Flood Hub and other disaster assistance organizations in Columbia as well as our partners in rural areas and along the coast.

Families Helping Families is a 25-year-old holiday assistance program that provides food, clothing, and Christmas gifts for 4,000 of South Carolina’s most destitute families.  These families are referred to FHF by local social service agencies, and then assigned “sponsors” from among volunteer businesses, civic groups, and more affluent families and individuals.

The sponsors are given a profile of their families and its needs, and asked to provide new clothing, gift certificates for food, and Christmas presents for the children. Everything ends up at FHF warehouses in Columbia and Charleston and eventually disbursed in time for Christmas.

Monetary donations are happily accepted and used to assist unsponsored families, normally at a rate of $40 to $50 per family member.

A number of organizations have already stepped up to sponsor large numbers of our families. These include The State (50 families), Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina (200 families) and Blythewood High School (250). Special thanks also to our very generous partner of 25 years, WIS-TV in Columbia.

• If you’d like to know more about sponsoring a family or simply make a contribution to this effort, visit us at www.familieshelpingfamilies.palmettoproject.org and click on the appropriate button on the left of the page.

Steve Skardon is executive director of the Palmetto Project.