For 32 years, Mara Cantelo of Yucca Valley has been organizing a free Christmas dinner for anyone who wants to share the day with others. This year, her organization, Tender Loving Christmas, has encountered several bumps in her fund-raising efforts. The organization hasn’t been able to hold its yard sales or recycling drives, and so is depending on the kindness of strangers to help it meet its goals of feeding more than 3000 people. Managing editor Tami Roleff spoke with Mara Cantelo recently, who offers suggestions on how people can help…
By this time in previous years, Tender Loving Christmas has held numerous yard sales and held other events to raise money and donations for its annual Christmas dinner. But for various reasons, TLC hasn’t been able to hold any of its fundraisers, and is in need of money, food, clothing, toys, and more more.
“We’ve been unable to recycle and sell things like we normally do and so we don’t have a backlog of any kind of funding to take care of those.”
Cantelo explains how people can help.
“It takes an enormous amount of food when you’re feeding around 3,200 people. We have to purchase our meats and our fresh vegetables. We’re definitely going to need some monetary donations. If you would rather purchase something for us, you can do gift cards or you can come to us and we will give you the exact item we need and where you can get it the cheapest.”
For contact info for TLC, see this story at z1077fm.com
TLC P O Box 895 Yucca Valley, 92286
760-333-2413
