Group committed to homeless at holidays

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - A Fort Wayne company has taken it upon itself to adopt nearly an entire homeless community for Christmas.

When workers at AccuTemp learned that only two families at one of the city’s homeless shelters would be getting help for the holidays, they decided no one at the Charis House would go without.

“Every year we start to worry, ‘is everybody going to get what they need?’ Every single year, the community, churches, businesses, families; they come through for us,” Toni Lovell, program director for The Rescue Mission said.

The company committed to supporting three mothers and their nine children who are residents at the shelter for women and children.  It has been gathering monetary donations as well as toys and basic needs requested by the families.

An organizer for the drive admits that fulfilling the wishes of so many individuals has been difficult during a struggling economy.

“The donations are just smaller than what they normally are so we’re just kind of struggling to raise funds at this point,” Tami Krause a donations organizer for AccuTemp said.

Krause and others at AccuTemp have reached beyond the company walls to others in the giving spirit this season.

“They all live under the same roof so to see some of them have Christmas and some of them not just was unacceptable,” Krause said.

A website was developed to collect tax deductible donations ; the deadline for doing so is Friday, December 14.