Budget barely covers necessities
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
E.P. hopes to be a teacher someday, but for now she's working as a teacher's aide and trying to make her salary stretch enough to feed her five children.
Saving for the future isn't an option at the moment for this 42-year-old single mom, who has two children in special education and has to buy asthma medications for two members of her family.
Buying new clothes for her children and getting those little necessities that make a house feel like a home are beyond her budget.
Christmas presents — the kind parents buy just to make their children happy — are an impossibility this year.
E.P. has four girls, ages 18, 16, 14 and 11. She also has a 9-year-old boy. All of the children need clothes.
The boy would like a bike. One of her girls would like a CD Walkman. The other girls are very much into makeup.
Christmas Fund donations will be used for families who need help making it through the holidays. Any money remaining after the holidays will be used to help those in need throughout the year.
To donate, send checks payable to "The Advertiser Christmas Fund" to Helping Hands Hawai'i, P.O. Box 17780, Honolulu, HI 96817. Monetary donations also may be dropped off at any First Hawaiian Bank branch. Goods can be donated at the Community Clearinghouse at 2100 N. Nimitz Highway, near Pu'uhale Road. For details, call 440-3804.
Our anonymous Santa is matching the first $25 of each donation to the Christmas Fund.
HOW TO HELP
Recent donations to The Advertiser Christmas Fund
- Cary McEntee $500.00
- In memory of Hoy Lau $100.00
- In memory of Wai Bun & Wai Ching Lee $100.00
- In memory of William T.S. Wong $100.00
- Benjamin & Florence Kodama $100.00
- Edward T. Yasuda $100.00
- Merle & Clara Boyer $50.00
- Art & Carolyn Frank $50.00
- In memory of Mary F. Hara $50.00
- Diane S. Lau $50.00
- In loving memory of Warren Y. Ishii $25.00
- In memory of John McShane $25.00
- In memory of Lei Berg $25.00
- In memory of Norris Shimabuku $25.00
- In memory of Tremaine Tamayose $25.00
- Hanako & Lloyd A. Nakagawa $25.00
Total $1,350.00
Previous total $28,551.00
Total to date $29,901.00
