Caring Tree fails to meet its goal

By Jeremiah Tucker, Sauk Prairie Eagle

For the first time in at least nine years, the Caring Tree program failed to reach its fundraising goal after scores of parents contacted the charity seeking last-minute gifts for their children.

Sharon Kizer, who serves on the Caring Tree committee, said the program’s goal was to raise $15,000, but as of Dec. 18 — the day before the group distributed the gifts to the families — the program had raised a little under $11, 696.

“It’s hard to keep up at the rate the families have been coming in,” Kizer said.

Kizer said the 11-year-old Caring Tree program may not have reached its fundraising goal nine years ago when she joined the committee and the program still was relatively unknown throughout the community, but she’s sure it has every year since. However, this year the need has nearly overwhelmed her committee.

Last year the Caring Tree program gave gifts to 128 families. This year, requests climbed to about 170 – a 32 percent increase.

“It’s a huge, huge increase,” said Karen Fabisiak, general manager of Prairie du Sac’s St. Vincent de Paul, which coordinates the Caring Tree program.

The cut-off date to sign up for the program was Nov. 20, but Kizer said Caring Tree didn’t stick to it.

“Social services would call and tell of more that really, really needed some help, and we just couldn’t turn them away,” Kizer said.

Fabisiak said she believes the economic downturn forced more families to seek help securing their children’s Christmas presents.

“We have nine more children we just got last night,” Fabisiak said. “It’s a sign of the economic times. There’s a sense of pride, too, with a lot of families who’ve never had to ask for help before.”

Volunteers post tags with the gifts requested by area parents who qualified for the Caring Tree program on trees at various area businesses and churches, and people in the community can take a tag and purchase the gifts.

In addition to the Christmas gifts, the Caring Tree program also includes movie tickets for kids and gift certificates to grocery stores so parents can purchase a Christmas dinner. The Caring Tree also uses money it raises to buy gifts on tags that remain on the trees at the end of the program.

 Kizer said Caring Tree had enough money saved in reserves to fulfill this year’s requests. However, Fabisiak said demand has been so great the group isn’t going to be able to deliver the presents requested by the elderly and the handicapped individuals who signed up for the program until after Christmas. 

“With the elderly and the mentally handicap, we deliver those,” Fabisiak said as she worked to put the gift boxes together for the families in the program. “You have a hundred of those, and it’s hard to put those together along with all this.”