Caring Hearts Helping Hands reopens in Dover
Dover, Del. – Caring Hearts Helping Hands reopened on Tuesday at 2 North Brandford St. after a five month hiatus.
Officials said they are ecstatic about relaunching and being able to serve more families, which officials refer to as “clients.”
“We’re ecstatic to be here in this beautiful home,” BJ Van Kavelaar said. Van Kavelaar is one of the five directors at the nonprofit. “That we can carry on the two major programs that we started with and, look at what we can do in the future, maybe in the spring.”
Caring Hearts Helping Hands is a nonprofit focused on helping working families who make just enough not to qualify for government-backed subsidies, but still need help affording things that their kids need for back to school or the holidays.
“With a lot of the other charities, they don’t have to be working. We wanted to make sure that we are offering a step up and are a hand up and not a handout,” Van Kavelaar said.
For the volunteers and those who help finance all of the supplies families need (known as “wish grantors”) who have been with them for years, their hiatus was “devastating.”
“I was very disappointed that the government couldn’t find a way to continue to support them,” Susan Frey said. Frey is retired and serves as a volunteer and wish grantor with Caring Hearts. She says she and her husband, Douglas Griffin (also retired), have been volunteering with the organization for over 10 years. She said she and her husband have volunteered with them for so long because it “feels good to give back.”
“It’s very special for the children to get a Christmas that is like other kids’,” she said.
“I feel like we’re Santa Claus,” Griffin said.
Barbara Roos, another of Caring Hearts’ directors, said that through generous donations and grants, they can accept more clients. She said they are currently serving about 120 families and can serve at least 150. She said she encourages those who qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, to apply, as they are most likely eligible to be clients with them.
