WESTERLO — “We want every child to have Christmas,” says Mary Beth Peterson, director  of the Hilltowns Community Resource Center based in the annex of the Westerlo Reformed Church.

She says the demand for help from families who want to give their children a happy Christmas, despite limited resources, is up considerably this year.

Last year, 92 children received gifts donated by sponsors, but wrapped and presented to them by  their parents. This year, 120 will.

The center’s Adopt-A-Child program recruits Capital Region sponsors who buy age-appropriate gifts— “Teens are especially hard to buy for,” Petersen says — and deliver them to the resource center.

Center volunteers then deliver the gifts to families who can’t get to the Center. Families who can, come to the center to pick up their donated gifts.

The resource center’s holiday largesse doesn’t end there. Many elderly residents throughout its Hilltowns service area — “about 250 square miles,” Peterson says — receive a $50 check to make their holiday happier. Many of the elderly whom the center serves live alone.

“Our holiday outreach to seniors is kind of improvised from bits and pieces we throw together from here and there,” Petersen says. Individual donations come in, she says. Hannaford helps also, through its Help Fight Hunger Program that donates boxes of food, and the Berne-Knox-Westerlo high school faculty pitches in with their Ugly Sweater Day that raised $300 last year, Peterson reports.

  Making it work

“We fly by the seat of our pants,’” says Peterson of the organization she directs along with Assistant Director Misty Schaffer, “but we make it work...We have very loyal sponsors.” She says they also have about a dozen “solid” volunteers.

Elderly residents  who are able to travel also attend a twice-monthly luncheon the center puts on.  “It’s gotten really popular,” Petersen says. “When we started three years ago, we had maybe 12 people coming. Now we’re up to 60….We have a lot of fun.”

Hilltown elders looking for good food and good company also have the option of the luncheons that are served three times weekly at the Berne Community and Senior Center, one of several services provided by Helderberg Senior Services, with the support of the Albany County Department for Aging and Senior Services of Albany. Free transportation is offered to those luncheons.

The Hilltown Community Resource Center—which was founded more than 30 years ago, Peterson says — is  sponsored and underwritten by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany. Several Hilltown churches also have their own outreach to the elderly.

An office space currently being remodeled in the Berne Community and Senior Center — the labor provided by local Boy Scouts who are completing their project for Eagle Scout rank — is to be  a part-time Albany County Office of Aging satellite office serving  the elderly who want information or to sign up for services without having to drive to Albany.

Petersen would like to see a similar office in Clarksville serving the more eastern and southern reaches of the Hilltowns.

“So many of those we serve don’t want to go off the Hill,” she observes. “For many seniors, it’s just too stressful to go down to Washington Avenue.  For younger folks, their cars may barely run or they have no car.”

‘There are really no mental-health services in the Hilltowns,” Petersson adds.

In January, the resource center plans to start a mothers’ group in partnership with the Albany County Mental Health Department. “It will be for mothers of any age but especially for single mothers who can benefit from mentoring,” Petersen says.

She said the program is typical of how the center tries “to put programs within our programs.”

The center’s main program continues to be its food pantry operation, as a member of The Food Pantries for the Capital District, which  distributes food provided by the Regional Food Bank to 56  food pantries in three counties.  Beginning in April, the center’s fixed pantry at the church was supplemented by a mobile pantry operated by The Food Pantries for the Capital District and supported by a grant from the Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan. Every Tuesday it visits a different Hilltown to bring food to the homebound elderly and to families unable to travel to Westerlo to pick up their food supplies there.

The mobile pantry can also be a way, Peterson says, to get needed medications to elderly residents on its routes.

Though Christmas is fast approaching, Peterson says there is still time to become a sponsor through the Adopt-A-Child program or to donate to the center to help support its outreach to the elderly at the holidays and after.

Those who want to help as well as those who need help may call (518) 797-5256 for more information.

Donations may be mailed to Hilltowns Community Resource Center, Post Office Box 147, Westerlo 12193. Checks may be made out to HCRC.