Help Bring Hope Home This Holiday Season

For many families in our community, the holiday season brings added financial pressure to an already difficult situation. Families experiencing homelessness, housing instability, low income, or unexpected financial hardship are often focused on meeting their most immediate needs: maintaining safe housing, purchasing food, keeping utilities on, securing transportation, and providing essential clothing and personal care items.

When a household is struggling to meet these basic needs, purchasing holiday gifts may simply not be possible.

StrongSteps Behavioral Health Foundation created Holiday for Hope to help our community respond.

Our Mission This Holiday Season

Holiday for Hope is a community-based holiday assistance initiative dedicated to supporting local children and families experiencing financial hardship, homelessness, housing instability, and other circumstances that create barriers to a safe and joyful holiday season.

Through Holiday for Hope, StrongSteps Behavioral Health Foundation brings together donors, businesses, community organizations, volunteers, and other supporters to provide meaningful holiday assistance to families in need.

Our goal is to ensure that children and families facing difficult circumstances are treated with dignity, compassion, and respect while receiving support from the community they call home.

Meeting a Real Community Need

The families we seek to support represent many different circumstances.

Some families are experiencing homelessness or living in temporary or transitional housing. Others may be staying with relatives or friends while working toward stable housing. Many families have permanent housing but are struggling with the increasing costs of rent, food, utilities, transportation, clothing, and other necessities.

For these households, the holidays can create an additional financial burden at a time when resources are already limited.

Holiday for Hope provides our community with a direct and meaningful way to respond.

Through donated toys, Giving Trees, community collection sites, financial contributions, sponsorships, and volunteer support, we work to help families provide a positive holiday experience for their children without having to sacrifice essential household needs.

How Holiday for Hope Works

Families participating in Holiday for Hope are assigned confidential identification numbers to help protect their privacy and personal information.

Requested gifts and holiday needs may be distributed through Holiday for Hope Giving Trees hosted by participating businesses and community organizations. Donors can select a request, purchase the identified item, and return the new, unwrapped gift to a designated collection location.

StrongSteps also works with community partners to establish official Holiday for Hope Drop-Off Centers where members of the public can contribute new, unwrapped toys and gifts.

Financial contributions made through this campaign provide additional flexibility to address unmet needs and support the overall operation of Holiday for Hope.

How Your Contribution Helps

Funds raised through Holiday for Hope may be used to support program needs including:

Toys and age-appropriate gifts for children
Gifts and requested items for teenagers
Winter clothing and essential items
Gift cards and other family support needs
Holiday wishes that remain unfulfilled through community Giving Trees
Collection, organization, distribution, and other costs associated with operating Holiday for Hope

Financial donations are particularly important because they allow StrongSteps Behavioral Health Foundation to respond to gaps that may remain after donated gifts have been collected.

Our goal is to use community support where it can have the greatest impact while maintaining responsible stewardship of the resources entrusted to our organization.

Preserving Dignity and Respect

Holiday for Hope is built on the principle that receiving assistance should never diminish a person's dignity.

Families experiencing homelessness or financial hardship are members of our community. They are parents, caregivers, children, neighbors, coworkers, and friends who may be navigating an exceptionally difficult period in their lives.

Their circumstances do not define their worth.

StrongSteps Behavioral Health Foundation is committed to protecting the privacy of participating families and providing assistance in a manner that is respectful, compassionate, and centered on dignity.

A holiday gift cannot resolve every challenge facing a household. It can, however, provide a meaningful moment of stability and joy for a child while relieving some of the financial pressure experienced by a parent or caregiver.

It also communicates something important: their community has not forgotten them.

A Community-Wide Effort

Holiday for Hope is made possible through collective community support.

Individuals can contribute financially, purchase requested gifts, donate new toys, volunteer, or help raise awareness.

Businesses and organizations can host Giving Trees, establish collection sites, organize employee giving campaigns, become official Drop-Off Centers, provide sponsorship support, offer matching gifts, or create fundraising initiatives benefiting Holiday for Hope.

Every contribution becomes part of a larger community effort to ensure that families facing hardship have additional support during the holiday season.

Our 2026 Goal

StrongSteps Behavioral Health Foundation has established a fundraising goal of $15,000 for Holiday for Hope 2026, in addition to the toys, gifts, and other in-kind contributions collected throughout the campaign.

Reaching this goal will strengthen our ability to fulfill unmet holiday needs and provide assistance where community donations are needed most.

A contribution at any level helps advance this effort.

By supporting Holiday for Hope, you are investing in a community where families experiencing hardship are met with compassion, dignity, and meaningful support.

We invite you to make a contribution and join StrongSteps Behavioral Health Foundation in bringing hope home this holiday season.

Holiday for Hope 2026

StrongSteps Behavioral Health Foundation

Share Hope. Give Joy. Strengthen Our Community.