Helping Hands For The Holidays – How You Can Help

A helping hand is so very different than a hand out. A hand out is given to fix things for the moment. A helping hand is something that helps now and helps build for a better future. For the past several years we here at 97.3 The Dawg have partnered withThe Stuller Family Foundation,Covenant United Methodist Church and the Community Foundation of Acadiana to lend a helping hand.

The program is designed to help those who are truly trying their hardest to help themselves. They either have a job or are aggressively looking for one. They pay their bills as best they can but because of a medical issue, car issue or family issue they never quite seem to get ahead. These are the people we want to help with Helping Hands for the Holidays.

Here is how you can help us lend that helping hand.

1: Tell us about a family or individual that you think deserves a helping hand. We would like to keep all submissions anonymous so send an email to me, Bruce Mikells, with the following; Your contact information, your email, and a phone number where we can reach you and gather some more information. We would also ask that you tell us, to the best of your ability, what this family or individual is going through and how you think we might be able to help them out.

2: Make a donation either monetary or by offering your talents or the talents of those you work with. Monetary donations can be made through Community Foundation of Acadiana. Just make sure to specify "Helping Hands for the Holidays".  If your business is car repair, home repair or general maintenance we can always use your talents. Many of the helping hands we lend involve getting cars repaired, heating systems functioning, and roofs and windows fixed.

3. Spread the word through your office, church or social media. Let your friends know about the program. It just works better the more people that get involved.

Who gets a helping hand?

Unfortunately the needs far exceed our ability to help everyone. So what our program does is identify specific needs and situations that we can fix. We'd rather give a few people enough help to get them back on their feet as opposed to just offering a lot of people a small amount that will only help for a moment. Helping hands is about changing the future, not putting a band aid on a problem that will return with next month's bills or the next rainstorm.

Over the years, with your help, we've been able to help a lot of families get back on their feet and out from under unreliable cars, leaky roofs, unsafe homes and more. We've also bought beds for families that had children sleeping on the floor, we've built handicapped ramps for homes that needed them, we've turned the heat and lights back on and we've given hard working people hope without sacrificing their dignity.

I am very proud of Helping Hands for the Holidays, it lines up directly with my own faith and values. I believe that you and I share similar values and I would be honored if you would join me, Scott Brazda from KATC TV 3 and Stuller Family Foundation, Pastor Chris Blanchard from Covenant United Methodist Church and the good people at Community Foundation of Acadiana in lending a helping hand for the holidays this year.