Middle Georgia agencies seeking support during holiday season, beyond

As the Christmas season approaches, Middle Georgia agencies that help families during the holidays are seeking more donations.

On Tuesday, Tattnall Square Academy held a kickoff for the Kids Yule Love holiday toy giveaway as students and staff gave a few hundred toys to help the nonprofit organization.

While the response from Tattnall was strong, donations overall have been slow for Kids Yule Love, especially since the Christmas gifts will be sent out in the next couple weeks, said Chris Allen, its public relations director.

"We've noticed the monetary contributions ... and even now the toys are not really coming in," Allen said. If past trends hold true, more donations will come in at the last minute, he said.

The organization will help the same number of children as in past years as its reach has spread out to seven new counties where parents asked to be involved, said Kids Yule Love founder Joe Allen.

This year, Kids Yule Love required parents to volunteer in the community in order to receive gifts. The early response was not positive. The rule was put in place because some families in the past returned the donated toys to stores in order to receive cash. All volunteer hours must have been completed by last month.

But Joe Allen said the new rule hasn't impacted this year's donations. He credited the selflessness of others for the organization's success so far.

"It's not us. It's the people that purchase the stuff like the kids at Tattnall today that always come through," he said.

Kids Yule Love isn't the only charity looking for donations.

Monetary donations have picked up as Christmas nears for the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank, but it's always looking to help more people, associate director Doug Rohme said.

The food bank has about 250 partner agencies in 24 counties to which it provides food. Some of those groups get the food in bulk -- 2,000 to 5,000 pounds at a time. Last summer, the food bank's warehouse was well under capacity, he said.

"Because we are looking long-term, we're already ordering food for late winter, early spring so we need those monetary donations to continue," Rohme said. "We're just as busy in the month of May as we are in the month of December."

Even if monetaryy donations can't be made, the food bank also always welcomes volunteers, Rohme said.

For more information on how to help Kids Yule Love, visit www.kidsyulelove.com. Toys donated to Kids Yule Love must be new and unwrapped.

To help the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank, go to www.mgcfb.org.

This story was originally published December 7, 2015 at 10:28 PM with the headline "Middle Georgia agencies seeking support during holiday season, beyond ."