AUBURN – It was a cold afternoon, still days before Christmas. Kmart had plenty of shoppers.

Most hurried by John Carney and his red Salvation Army kettle without leaving anything. Several shoppers, however, did stop and drop money in the kettle next to Carney, a veteran kettle volunteer – 27 years this year. His mother is a volunteer, too.

“Thank you. Have a nice holiday,” Carney said softly to one woman as she donated.

“You too,” she said.

An elderly man in a tan L.L. Bean jacket stopped and gave. So did a woman hauling off cat box litter, a man in his 30s with several bags, and a young man wearing baggy pants.

A middle-aged woman in a bulky coat said she gave because people need help.

“Because it’s Christmas,” she added.

The Salvation Army kettles are not the only places where good will happens.

Due to several efforts under way in the area, shopping, wrapping and delivering to others less fortunate is a bountiful activity this year. In many cases, givers never meet receivers, and they probably never will.

Santa came early

On Dec. 16, Mary Ratsavong of Androscoggin Head Start walked into the Central Maine Heart and Vascular Institute’s lobby holding a clipboard.

There stood a 14-foot-tall tree surrounded by gifts for Zachery, Tyler, Mackenzie, Angel, Corey, Makayla, Leigh-Ann, Meghan, Christian and many more.

How many gifts were under the tree? Some estimated 500, others guessed 1,000. There were so many that a Santa-sized plastic bag full of presents was dwarfed by the mound.

It looked like Santa came early.

It was Central Maine Medical Center’s Adopt-a-Child program, where workers ask Head Start folks for the names of needy children in Androscoggin County, then buy gifts for the children and often their siblings and parents. The heart center was one of two drop-off points for CMMC workers bringing gifts.

“Zachery will be warm this year,” said Lorraine Foster, after she added more gifts to the pile. Foster works in the switchboard/security department. She and her co-workers “adopted” Zachery for Christmas.

“We had a boy!” she said with a grin. They bought the 5-month-old a snowsuit, pajamas, slippers, shoes, diapers, socks and other items.

A small army of Head Start workers was there to load gifts into cars and deliver them to families. Ratsavong oversaw the operation.

“This is a wonderful day,” she said.

Parents are overwhelmed when someone knocks at their door with gifts. “They are literally in tears. There are no words to describe” how grateful they are, Ratsavong said. “Some of them say, Now I can pay for the heat,’ or Now I can buy a Christmas dinner.’ Most of them are working. They’re the working poor.”

Gerry St. Amand, heads the Adopt-a-Child program at CMMC. As the gifts began to disappear into waiting cars, vans and trucks, the mood was almost as happy as Christmas morning. “I really enjoy doing this,” St. Amand said.

A giving year

Estelle Rubinstein is Jewish and celebrates Hanukkah, but the Christmas season is one of her favorite times of the year.

None of her 400-plus Head Start children and their families will go without this year, Rubinstein said. “They’re covered.”

CMMC workers are not the only ones who help, said Rubinstein, who leads the local Head Start program.

Last week the Androscoggin Realtors Association donated 85 snowsuits to area kids who would have gone without. Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce members brought a gift to their annual party for a child in Head Start or for Advocates for Children. Many individuals and small businesses have phoned, asking if there is a family in need. They say, “I’m sending you X amount so nobody will be left out,” Rubinstein said.

“As a result, my staff is so happy running up two, three, four flights of steps delivering wonderful, wonderful gifts to families,” she said.

“We feel so blessed to have all these people wrap their arms around children and keep them safe, to have a toy they might not have gotten.”

With a tough economy, Rubinstein worried that this year would not be a good one for donations. But the war in Iraq, the fact that so many Mainers have lost someone overseas, may have people realizing how fortunate they are. “It makes us feel good to share. There by the grace of God go any of us.”

Money, food pour in

After Good Shepherd Food Bank founder JoAnn Pike died earlier this year, donations slowed for the agency that provides food to the needy across Maine.

Some weeks, income barely covered payroll, said new Executive Director Charles Large. That changed as the Christmas season got under way.

“In the last four weeks, we’ve seen such a gracious outpouring, both in food and money.” He predicted the agency will receive as many donations as last year.

They’ve been coming in, both large and small. Recently, a check for $10,000 came in from the Maine Community Foundation, Large said, fighting back tears. “That’s a huge amount.” Good Shepherd asked the foundation to let the donor know how much it meant.

“Yesterday we received 40 turkeys,” Large said. One was from a UPS driver who said he didn’t need the turkey his employer gave him.

Donations that also tug at Large’s heart are the many modest checks he has received for amounts like $12.40 and $15.50. The senders say they can’t afford to give much, but they can’t not give, Large said.

Across Maine, many Christmas tables “will have something because of the generosity of all these donors,” he said.

Kids with jailed parents

There’s an “Angel Tree” in the East Auburn Baptist Church. As at a lot of churches, the congregation there helps children who have fewer advantages. In particular, this church focuses on children who have a parent in jail, said church education director Tim Howard. “If they’re in prison, they can’t be with their family” or provide gifts.

Howard works with the Androscoggin County Jail chaplain to get requests from inmates about what they’d like their children to receive. Tags with a child’s name are hung on a tree in the church.

Several weeks before Christmas, all the tags were already gone, Howard said. Church members took tags, bought gifts and put them under the tree. Days before Christmas, the gifts will be delivered.

The program has spilled over: The congregation now offers summer camp for the children, Howard said. “People like the idea of having touched these families.”

Building on success

After donating food baskets at Thanksgiving, employees at Maine Machine Products took on Christmas.

Maureen Ilsley, secretary for the Paris company’s health and wellness committee, said this was the first year that food baskets were put together to help area families through the Thanksgiving holiday.

“We did four,” Ilsley said, each chock full of turkey and all the trimmings, plus tablecloths, napkins and candles.

At the next meeting of the committee, “We thought that went successfully, so we thought, well, how about Christmas for Kids and (Christmas for) Teens?”

The programs are sponsored by Rightstart. The company, a precision custom manufacturer of components and assemblies, offered to match each employee dollar raised for the programs. As of Dec. 20, $1,922 had been raised and batches of donated toys and gifts had been donated.

The giving nature at Maine Machine Products had resulted in gifts for 11 children and teens.

Ilsley said employees have put together another four food baskets as well.

“This is astounding to me,” she said enthusiastically. She added that she expects the giving to continue next year.

Very, very good’

At the Giving Tree at the Auburn Mall, “the toys are coming in well. The gifts are phenomenal,” said Capt. John Bennett of the Salvation Army in Lewiston.

The Giving Tree, where shoppers pick a tag and bring a gift for a needy child, continues to be popular, Bennett said.

So is the Coats for Kids program at Shaw’s supermarkets. In recent weeks the Salvation Army has given away 100 coats and jackets per week.

As for cash donations from the kettles, as of Dec. 15 the Salvation Army had collected $33,000 in Lewiston-Auburn, up $11,000 from two weeks before.

“It’s been steady. With the rise and fall of the economy, that’s a good thing,” Bennett said. “The downside of that is the cost of everything has increased, so the same level of funding doesn’t meet the needs.”

Meeting the needs means raising $55,000 this year, Bennett explained, adding that he wasn’t sure that much will be collected by Christmas. But Wal-Mart’s recent offer to match donations will help. Giving has been heavy in the last week or two, but a big storm could change that. There’s no sense putting bell ringers in front of stores if the shoppers aren’t there, Bennett said.

This Christmas the Salvation Army will be providing for 300 to 350 families in Lewiston-Auburn, Bennett said. Money collected from the buckets will be used for Christmas, as well as to provide families with emergency assistance for food, housing and – this year in particular – fuel throughout the year.

“People are worried about energy costs. We’ve received more applications for heating assistance this year,” Bennett said.

More money for heating means less for Christmas for many families, said Bennett, so the work continues. “People are very, very good,” he said of donors.

Staff Writer Kelly Morgan contributed to this report.