Mail Tribune News - `Candle' gifts keep coming in

Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)

2000-09-16

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`Candle' gifts keep coming in By SUSAN JAY Readers are still calling with contributions to the 12 families featured in the Light One Candle series. All the families received donations. Here is a brief description of how readers and residents helped the families this holiday season: Property management groups volunteered to help the homeless parents with the hemophiliac son in Ashland apply for special financing programs for low-income families so they can purchase a home. The property managers also offered to work with CERVS and low-income families, so that move-in costs aren't such an obstacle. Readers donated tools, clothes, a Nintendo with games, cords of wood, wood delivery and money to the Sams Valley 15-year-old and his mother, who has terminal cancer. Sweet's General Store donated groceries, and Harry and David donated a huge basket of food and a turkey. People donated several water heaters to the Salvation Army for the Ruch family of six who had been without hot water for a few weeks and could not afford to replace their broken water heater. Donations of money paid for a hotel room for a few days for the elderly man and his wife who were living in a dilapidated fifth wheel in Ashland. The trailer had no electricity, and has since been condemned by electrical workers. The couple will be homeless, however, after Saturday. Anyone interested in helping this couple with a low-income apartment can call Julie Westholder with ACCESS Inc., at 821-3841 or 774-4310. The Hispanic single father of an infant and a toddler in White City has a lot more clothes and furniture, thanks to readers' donations. He still needs a nighttime job. Readers interested in helping him find one can call Rogue Family Center's Flo Dahme at 830-7001. Donations were steadily arriving at the Ashland Christian Fellowship Thursday for the single mother with cancer who lives in Talent with her five young boys. She has had 40 surgeries because of cancer and infection in her knee, and is undergoing radiation to shrink another tumor. More than $600 has been donated to buy shoes for her sons. The church is also hoping for help in fixing her 1995 Plymouth Voyager, which has been to the dealer 20 times since May. For more information call 482-8539. Volunteers from First Church of the Nazarene and a few carpenters offered Thursday to fix Grandma Gracie's roof. Other people have donated money, and Pastor Connie Jones could use a little more to purchase roofing materials. For more information call Jones at 774-9848. Mail Tribune Copyright �  The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA