All questions should be directed to the email address and phone number provided:

2023 Program Overview

Heart to Heart will once again offer assistance to families in need this Christmas through the support provided by First Community Church. The program will be organized by our longtime volunteer, Kitty Rohrer, with assistance from Rebecca Wolfe and Pat Porterfield. We are extremely grateful for their time and effort.

In response to feedback, we have received on the Christmas program in the past couple of years, we have made some adjustments to make the program run more smoothly.

Donors will be asked to make donations in the form of gift cards in the amount of their choosing to any of four major retailers. The recipient families will be given gift cards to purchase gifts or their own children for Christmas. Families will receive a set amount per child to the retailer that best suits their needs.

For Donors

In response to feedback, we have received on the Christmas program in the past couple of years, we have made some adjustments to make the program run more smoothly. Most notably, no sponsor contact with recipient families will be required.

However, this means we will accept donations of gift cards only. Gift cards may be donated in any amount from these four retailers: Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target, or Meijer. Any denomination of gift card is welcome as we will combine all donations to give $150 toward each child in the household.

Tax-deduction receipts for these gift card donations will not be made available from the church. We will not accept cash, check, or online donations to purchase gift cards. Any non-gift card donations made to Heart to Heart between now and the end of the year will go toward the operating costs of the food pantry and will not be used for special programs. However, gift card donations can begin immediately, and the donations will be held until we are ready to distribute them to recipient families.

You may mail gift cards to:
First Community Church
Attn: Heart to Heart Holiday Help
1320 Cambridge Blvd.
Columbus OH 43212

You may drop off gift cards at the reception desk at either campus during office hours. There is a locked ballot box to accept the gift cards which will be emptied regularly for safekeeping.

South office hours
Reception desk in Crane Welcome Center:
M-F 9am – 4pm
Sun 9am – 12pm

 

North office hours
Reception desk in Rose Wing:
M-F 8am – 5pm
Sun 9am – 1pm

While we understand it may be more fun to purchase, wrap, and donate toys, clothes, and other gifts for kids, we are not staffed to run a project of this magnitude. If you’re interested in donating this kind, we have several suggestions:

For Recipients

We will begin to accept recipients into the program on November 1. We will accept 120 families, regardless of the number of children. Once the number of families accepted reaches 120, we will close the program, regardless of the date.

If you are interested in being one of these families, please get in touch with us via email or phone. Our outgoing voicemail message will be updated when the program is full and we are no longer accepting recipients.

In your message please include:

  • Your full name or the name of the person we should contact to follow up.
  • Phone number. Please list the number at which you are most easily reached and make sure your voicemail is set up to receive messages and is not full.
  • Email Address.
  • The number of children in your family, and their ages.
  • The number of adults in your family.
  • The store at which you usually shop/ would prefer to buy gifts. Choose ONLY from: Target, Wal-Mart, Meijer,
    Amazon.
  • Whether or not you have sought assistance from other, similar programs, such as Toys for Tots or Adopt-a-Family.

Once your family is accepted into the program, we will be in touch with you to get any further information needed and give you details for pickup of the gift cards.

Please email or leave a message only ONE TIME. The program is staffed entirely by volunteers, and we get hundreds of requests each year. Allowing our volunteers time to respond makes the process run more smoothly for everyone. Your patience is appreciated. If you do not hear back from us by December 1, please follow up at that time.

Please note that the food pantry manager and volunteers in the drive-thru will not be able to answer questions about program details and all questions should be directed to the email address and phone number provided: hearttoheart@fcchurch.com -OR- 614.488.0681 ext. 257

If Heart to Heart is unable to assist you this Christmas, we suggest looking into the following programs:

You may also want to search for other programs through the LSS 211 Central Ohio by calling 211 or on their website.

Printable Donor Summary
Printable Recipient Summary