For over 40 years, the Poughkeepsie Journal and the United Way of the Dutchess-Orange Region have partnered on the Holiday Helping Hand campaign, and the fundraising drive is underway for the 2025 holiday season.
Holiday Helping Hand raises funds for Dutchess County programs that help provide a small amount of assistance for local kids and families who might otherwise have little or nothing for the holidays.
Local organizations will help deliver everything from holiday gifts and visits from Santa to utility assistance and holiday dinners to those who need it most this time of year.
The funds raised will go toward the following holiday season’s programs. Last holiday season’s 186 donations received, as of Jan. 23, 2025, amounting to $18,369.22, are enabling programs to function during the 2025 holiday season.
Your generosity is needed now to help families through the 2026 holiday season.
To donate, visit uwdor.org/hhh or mail a check to Holiday Helping Hand, United Way of the Dutchess-Orange Region, 75 Market St., Poughkeepsie, NY 12601. Checks should be made payable to Holiday Helping Hand.
All donations go directly to Dutchess County organizations to serve those in need.
Here’s what this year’s 30 participating organizations are providing to families and children in need during the holiday season.
Holiday Helping Hand 2025 Dutchess Organizations
Astor Services’ Little Wishes Project: The “Little Wishes Project” is Astor Services’ new name for their “Adopt-A-Family” program, which they have had during the holiday season for over 30 years. With the funds, their goal is to give 800 families in the Hudson Valley and Bronx, with children 18 and under, who are enrolled within Astor’s programs, $50 gift cards, so parents can choose a meaningful gift from their child’s wish list.
Boys and Girls Club of Poughkeepsie’s Project Learn: A comprehensive strategy to enhance academic performance of economically disadvantaged adolescents, this program aims to reach at-risk neighborhoods and children, increasing students’ interest in education, their educational abilities and their grades.
Camino al Éxito Project for All’s Holiday Basket Giving & Celebration: What began as a small community effort has now grown into a cherished tradition, with the help of volunteers and donations. In 2024, they prepared 96 baskets filled with culturally relevant foods, and a lively community gathering ensued, with music, treats and memory-making at the forefront. Each distribution occurs between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
Catholic Charities Community Services of Dutchess County’s Help Staying Warm for the Winter: With the help of Holiday Helping Hand donations, this group will give 30 families utility assistance over the holidays through a $50 gift certificate. The goal is to assist with offsetting household utility bills or continuing a payment plan, ensuring neighbors stay warm in the cold weather.
Common Ground Farm’s Thanksgiving BackPack Distribution: This program aims to deliver an abundant Thanksgiving holiday for families with the greatest need within the Beacon City School District, including fall fruit and vegetable staples like carrots, apples, onions and potatoes, along with items like locally baked bread. Additionally, each year, the schools’ Parent Teacher Organizations support the program by covering the cost to supply participating families with a gift card to a local grocery store.
Community Action Partnership for Dutchess County’s Holiday Helping Hands: To ease the financial burden over the holidays, this program helps participating low-income families with children, who may have trouble purchasing gifts and paying for essential expenses like rent, utilities or groceries.
Community Family Development’s Holiday Cheer: This program supports families within Community Family Development by providing gift cards, gifts and food, to ensure everyone has the opportunity to a bright holiday season.
Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess County’s Relatives As Parents Program: This program supports families who have taken on the role of primary caregiver to a relative child.
Council on Addiction Prevention and Education of Dutchess County’s Generation Hope Clubhouse Holiday Giving Program: This program supports local children and families impacted by substance use, poverty and other challenges. CAPE and Generation Hope staff create a safe, inclusive space for teens to feel a sense of belonging, while participating in community service, receiving holiday gifts and enjoying a festive meal. The goal is to combine prevention and community care.
CultureConnect’s CommunityConnect: This after-school and summer enrichment program is designed to support English as a New Language students in the Red Hook Central School District, and has also previously served students in the Rhinebeck Central School District. The program offers approximately 40 hours of tutoring per semester, runs during the academic year and also includes a one-week, full-day summer session.
Dutchess Community College Foundation’s DCC Campus, Assessment, Response, Evaluation and Support: This program provides holistic financial support through emergency grants to students struggling to fulfill their basic needs.
Family Services, Inc.’s Center for Victim Safety and Support: This Family Services program provides 24-hour non-residential, comprehensive services to victims of all crimes, and served 2,410 victims of crime in 2024. CVSS works to enhance the systems of response for victims of crime, operating under a victim-centered approach, supporting victims’ rights, dignity, autonomy and self-determination.
Fareground Community Kitchen’s Holiday Groceries: This program will provide holiday groceries including fresh produce, turkeys or other protein options, dairy products, pantry staples, and dessert or dessert ingredients to over 500 households, including 45 homebound households.
Fostering Hope Together’s Breakfast with Santa: This program hosts a breakfast with Santa for families in need within the foster care system at The Fishkill Baptist Church in December. Each child will get a gift from Santa, breakfast and a craft, and each family will take home a sack, filled with gifts from their wish lists, to be opened on Christmas Day.
Foundation for Abilities First’s Holiday Helping Hands: Holiday Helping Hand donations assist with transforming the holiday season for over 1,300 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as their families, across the Hudson Valley.
Hope Rising Therapeutic Riding Center’s Hope Rising Farm Holiday Gifts: Grocery store gift cards for $75 will be given to five financially challenged families in Northeastern Dutchess who have children diagnosed with learning, emotional, and/or physical disabilities, and are enrolled in the Hope Rising Therapeutic Riding Center program.
Hudson River Housing Inc.’s Hudson River Housing Holiday Gift Program: This program provides gifts and gift cards to residents of their shelter at an on-site holiday party. Santa will visit and distribute gifts to the children in attendance, and refreshments and games will be available. Their Hudson River Lodging shelter houses 60 families, as well as 40 units of transitional housing for formerly homeless or low-income households.
Hudson Valley Hospice Foundation’s Making Holidays Happen: This program, through Holiday Helping Hand donations, gives meaningful gifts to the children and grandchildren of families with children under 18 who use their hospice services.
Mental Health America of Dutchess County Inc.’s CORE: CORE Services training, or Community Psychiatric Support and Treatment, trains peers with lived experience to provide one-on-one person-centered, recovery-oriented services to assist their clients in reaching independence. These trained peers help reduce hospitalization, advocate, provide mentorship to individuals and support skill development.
North East Community Center, Inc.’s Holiday Helping Hands Program: This community center will provide utility assistance to low-income households in its Northeast Dutchess coverage area, including Millerton, Pine Plains, Dover Plains, Amenia and Wassaic.
NYSARC Inc. Community League Wassaic Developmental Chapter’s Supplemental Group Day Habilitation Program: This program hosts recreational activities for people with intellectual and other developmental disabilities on weekends in the Dutchess County area, including movies, picnics, Renegades baseball games, theatrical performances and community events. Admission fees and activity costs for the activities are paid for by the organization, and participants are picked up by the staff, brought to the activity of the day and returned home.
PathStone Corporation’s PathStone Corporation: PathStone provides a range of services in the Dutchess County area, such as their Employment & Training Program, which prepares farm workers for employment outside of agriculture through job training, work experience, job placement assistance, occupational skills training, placement follow-up, job counseling and advocacy. Additionally, they assist in eliminating other barriers to employment and provide supportive services to migrant and seasonal farm workers in the area.
Pawling Resource Center’s Adopt-a-Family: This annual program aims to directly support low-income and in-need families in Pawling during the holiday season, by alleviating financial stress. Anonymous wish lists, including items such as essential needs, like winter coats and clothing, as well as a modest fun gift for each child, are released for local individuals and families to sponsor and fulfill.
Poughkeepsie Branch AAUW, Inc.’s Leading to Reading: This community-based literacy program collaborates with other community organizations to enhance their literacy programs. The multi-faceted program provides reading experiences, books and family reading kits to children from low- and moderate-income families.
Poughkeepsie Farm Project’s Thanksgiving Distribution for Sponsored Share & CSA: Holiday Helping Hand will provide an additional Thanksgiving share of farm-fresh produce to those who utilize Community Supported Agriculture. The produce distributed will come from Poughkeepsie Farm Project’s farm.
Taconic Resources for Independence, Inc.’s Holiday Helping Hands Utility Voucher Drawing: This program helps support individuals with disabilities, who are also their active consumers, between December 2024 and December 2025 through a $50 utility voucher lottery.
The Center of Compassion’s Happy Holidays: This program provides Thanksgiving baskets to those in need. Last year, they provided over 100 baskets, and they try to use all farm-fresh products in a basket that will feed all those within the family. They also provide gift cards for holiday shopping, toys and ham dinners. In early December, Santa gives out toys and candy canes to the children. Last year during the event, they were able to give out nearly 100 toys.
The Salvation Army Poughkeepsie Corps Community Center’s Christmas Assistance Program: Through this initiative during the holiday season, The Salvation Army supports local children, families and seniors by providing food baskets, toys, toiletries and cold-weather items.
Wassaic Fire Department, Ladies Auxiliary’s Dutchess County Helps: This program aims to provide help and relief to Dutchess County residents during the 2025 holiday season, who may not have the means to give gifts and presents to their children and loved ones.
Contact reporter Nickie Hayes: NHayes@poughkee.gannett.com, 845-863-3518 and @nickieehayess on Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Poughkeepsie Journal: Support these Dutchess County groups during the festive season through Holiday Helping Hand
Reporting by Nickie Hayes, Poughkeepsie Journal / Poughkeepsie Journal
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