December 10, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Two programs that distribute new toys to needy children over the holidays are getting a high-tech tuneup, thanks to donated consulting help.
Collaborative Consulting, a company in Boston, donated services worth an estimated $100,000 to help the Home for Little Wanderers improve its online “wish list,” which allows donors to purchase toys that children have requested. The Boston social-service group expects to be able to fulfill more than 3,600 wishes this year.
The company’s improvements allow donors to search the wish list by age, gender, or type of gift. The site, http://www.thehome.org, also allows a donor or company to “adopt a family” — provide clothing and other household essentials to meet the needs of an entire family.
“Last year, this program grew beyond our wildest dreams, and we were handling it all by faxes going back and forth,” says Scott Inman, the charity’s senior corporate-relations manager. “You can imagine the improvement of being able to handle it all online.”
Meanwhile, JCPenney has created an online version of the Angel Giving Tree, a program operated by the Salvation Army for more than 40 years that provides gifts to children from needy families and poor older adults.
The program has traditionally been conducted in shopping malls with live Christmas trees, but this year, for the first time, donors can go online to “adopt” people who have made requests for gifts.
Donors are not required to purchase the items at JCPenney.
Major George Hood, a Salvation Army spokesman, say he hopes the online site, http://www.jcp.com/angel, will allow the charity to provide gifts to an additional 100,000 children this year, on top of the roughly 500,000 who receive gifts through the solicitations held at malls.
