"Omaha metro area residents donated about $3.2 million on Giving Tuesday, according to preliminary reports from SHARE Omaha, the local organization that promotes and coordinates the global philanthropy push on the first Tuesday of December each year.

That figure includes all online gifts, but not funds collected in southwest Iowa or offline donations such as checks, said Katie Fourney, SHARE Omaha’s marketing and communications director.

Nonprofits across Omaha and its surrounding communities are still counting and reporting those gifts, she said.

So far, Omahans have given a total of $22.4 million on Giving Tuesday since 2019, Fourney said.

SHARE Omaha thought it was important to release the cumulative figure, even though it doesn’t include every donation this year.

“We wanted to convey the excitement of all the activity that surrounded the day and over the years but acknowledge that funds are still coming in,” she said in an interview.

The World-Herald’s Goodfellows charity was one of the benefactors. Online donors gave $8,338 to Goodfellows on Giving Tuesday, nearly $1,700 more than they gave last year. That figure will increase when offline donations received that day are added.

The Goodfellows holiday campaign has been going strong since late November, and so far, digital donations total $17,000, meaning about half of the digital total occurred on Giving Tuesday, said Krissy Suski, senior vice president of marketing and communications at United Way of the Midlands, which has administered the charity for The World-Herald since 2020. Total Goodfellows donations sit at about $171,000 so far.

She said United Way’s remodeled Goodfellows website has had a total of 7,300 visitors, 1,200 from new visitors.

The charity provides one-time emergency aid for housing, utilities and other needs to struggling families and individuals in the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area. It also distributes holiday meal vouchers. The holiday fundraising campaign runs through Dec. 31."

"A holiday meal voucher from Goodfellows can meet Omaha-area families’ essential needs and be a source of dignity for them, said a mother whose family benefitted from the program.

The meal vouchers, which provide families with a $50 or $100 gift card to Baker’s, depending on the size of their family, are just one form of aid provided by Goodfellows, which offers emergency assistance to Nebraska and Iowa families.

Goodfellows was started by The World-Herald more than 130 years ago and since 2020 has been administered in collaboration with the United Way of the Midlands.

Jeri Janz, now a volunteer coordinator at Together Omaha, which works to prevent hunger and homelessness in the area, received Goodfellows vouchers about 20 years ago. She was working at the time, but as a single mom of four kids, she said her budget was incredibly tight around the holidays. That’s where the food vouchers came in.

"I still remember how relieved I was when I got the letter that I had been approved, because I knew then that I was going to be able to get food for my kids,” she said. “We were going to be able to enjoy a special holiday.”

While other programs that provide meal kits or pre-selected food pantry items are also helpful, Janz said she appreciated being able to go to the grocery store and pick out items she knew her children would enjoy.

“I knew that it was the generosity of others that was providing me with that voucher, but it made me feel like I was doing something for my kids, too,” she said. “It gave me more dignity.”

According to the United Way, recent studies have found that approximately 35% of families in the Omaha area reported experiencing food insecurity. Food is one of the top needs the United Way sees through its 211 Helpline.

Many families visit local food pantries often, with an average of five to seven visits a year, according to the United Way.

Rising food prices have also affected families needing food and the nonprofits that provide it. Local nonprofits have also seen an increase in the average incomes of those they serve, according to the United Way.

Janz said she thinks people often don’t realize how much food insecurity exists in the community unless they are receiving food assistance or providing it.

“Until you’re in that moment, you don’t get an idea of just how big of an issue it is for so many people,” she said.

Parents who are unable to put food on the table around the holidays can feel ashamed, with a sense that they should be able to provide for their children, but programs like Goodfellows can also have an impact on those parents’ mental and emotional health, Janz said.

“It might seem like something simple, the Goodfellows voucher, but it could make all of the difference in the world for a family,” she said. “It did for me.”"

"The most significant need in Omaha right now is stable housing, according to United Way of the Midlands.

In the last fiscal year, more than 50% of the calls to United Way’s 211 Helpline were housing-related, and 85% of those calls were seeking housing assistance, a recent United Way impact study indicated.

Goodfellows, the World-Herald charity that helps area residents in crisis, can be a key part of easing that need, say officials who run the charity, which is more than 130 years old.

It offers applicants who are facing eviction and energy shutoffs a one-time $1,000 boost for rent and utilities, among other services.

In part to facilitate giving in support of that mission, United Way recently introduced a revamped Goodfellows website, said Krissy Suski, senior vice-president, marketing and communications for United Way of the Midlands.

“The refreshed design of GoodfellowsOmaha.com beautifully balances honoring the program’s rich heritage with a modernized look,” she said.

Features on the site include statistics and information about Goodfellows and links to World-Herald stories written about donors and the reasons they give. It also highlights aid recipients whose lives were improved and even transformed.

And, Suski said, “It makes it easier than ever to support the cause with donations accepted directly on the website.”

World-Herald employees operated the charity from its inception until 2020, when the newspaper entered into a partnership with United Way, which now handles all of its administration.

The newspaper remains deeply involved, however. Two newsroom employees serve on the charity’s advisory board and the paper continues to publish stories about interesting donations, events and other news during the yearly fundraising campaign, which runs from Nov. 24 to Dec. 31 this year.

In addition to one-time aid, Goodfellows also provides holiday meal vouchers for struggling families and has given coats, mittens and other warm clothes to Omaha school children.

Last year, 874 applicants received rent, mortgage or utility support; 1,100 children received a monthly diaper supplement, with 71,440 diapers distributed; more than 7,750 meals went to local households in need; and more than 14,000 coats, gloves, clothing and pairs of shoes were delivered to 76 area schools, according to a Goodfellows impact report.

Goodfellows funds and materials are allocated through six core Omaha nonprofits to make sure people get what they need:

Eastern Nebraska Community Action.
Family Housing Advisory Services.
Heart Ministry Center at Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
Heartland Family Service.
Together Inc.
United Way of the Midlands 211 Helpline.

Visitors to the new website can sign up for emails with inspirational stories about people who help and need help, details of urgent community needs and exclusive opportunities to get involved with Goodfellows.

Suski said she’s hopeful that the remodeled site will result in a new level of support for Goodfellows.

“This update ensures the legacy of Goodfellows stays front and center while offering an enhanced experience for our visitors,” she said."

"From diapers or school clothes for young families who needed an assist, meals for those who were hungry and rent money for those threatened with homelessness to hope for those who were laboring to find the light, this community has united together to provide.

Today, you can read the story of one of our neighbors, Kenya Tilson, by longtime Goodfellows supporter and World-Herald entertainment writer Betsie Freeman.

Tilson, like so many others Goodfellows funding has helped, was beset with sudden tragedy. This spring, her Omaha home was completely soaked and her worldly goods trashed when a storm flooded her apartment.

“I didn’t know how to feel. It was just a numbing pain,” Tilson told Freeman. “I was close to giving up.”

Goodfellows offered Tilson and her neighbors emergency funding. The help allowed her to replace her daughter’s and her own mattress.

Throughout this holiday season you can learn about people who received assistance and those who provided it as The World-Herald launches its annual Goodfellows campaign.

And that is really the power of Goodfellows. It is the community — each of us individually and all of us together helping those who need it.

We have our differences. We worship in separate religious houses, vote against each other’s candidates, root for different sports teams and like different foods.

But on this, we can band together. We all want to help. Please give — in honor of your loved ones who have passed on; in honor of your neighbors who did you a kindness; in honor of your pets who would do no one wrong; in honor of the times when you needed a little boost and you found help.

Any amount you can afford is welcome at goodfellowsomaha.com. At The World-Herald, we have celebrated those who gave a few pennies and those who gave donations worth millions of pennies. And we celebrate you.

Thank you for being fellows in our good community."

"About 11 p.m. one night this spring, Kenya Tilson woke up to a funny noise in her Omaha apartment.

“I got up and there was water on the floor and it was (making a sound) in the fan,” she said. “It was already flowing over my whole foot and was coming in fast. It got up to about my knee.”

She roused her 3-year-old daughter and started gathering everything they needed to leave — clothes, keys, other essentials.

“I didn’t know if it was going to stop,” she said.

It didn’t. She went to a friend’s house and returned to the Grandridge apartment complex near 99th and Fort Streets the next morning to find the patio door gone and her apartment essentially destroyed.

“It was trashed,” she said. “Everything from the bedroom was in the kitchen. The refrigerator was tipped over. I didn’t know how to feel. It was just a numbing pain.”

Tilson and her daughter were among 20 families at Grandridge displaced by flooding from a large spring storm on May 21. They all had no idea what to do next.

That was when Goodfellows, a charity founded by The World-Herald, came into play. Goodfellows is more than 130 years old and, until a few years ago, was operated by World-Herald employees. Since 2020, it has been administered in collaboration with United Way of the Midlands.

The annual Goodfellows holiday fundraising campaign begins today, and United Way President and CEO Shawna Forsberg said the story of Tilson and her fellow tenants illustrates the importance of Goodfellows’ efforts.

“It’s an amazing example as to why Goodfellows is so critical to supporting families when they need it,” she said.

Goodfellows offers one-time emergency aid to Nebraska and Iowa families who are struggling to pay for housing, utility bills, car repairs or other urgent needs. It also distributes vouchers for holiday meals."

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“An Omaha couple have honored the memory of their daughter who died of leukemia through a growing donation to Goodfellows since 2016. Bobbi and Mike Gatrost donated $430 to this year’s Goodfellows campaign in memory of daughter Tammy Gatrost, a high school teacher in Missouri Valley, Iowa, who died seven years ago.

Tammy was 36 when she died and that year, the Gatrosts made a $360 donation to Goodfellows in her memory. Every year since then, they’ve added an additional $10 to their donation to mark the age she would have been, Bobbi said. “I know that Goodfellows is the organization that helps people when they’re down on their luck,” Bobbi said.

…Tammy was a dedicated teacher and had talked about wanting to find a way to help others who were less fortunate, Bobbi said. “She was always trying to help others,” she said.

…While Tammy never married or had children, she enjoyed spending time with family, Bobbi said. Tammy also loved Christmas. “We had talked around Christmastime about doing something for others, and I just thought that Goodfellows was a good thing,” Bobbi said.

“Anne and James Foley were ardent supporters of Goodfellows and other charities in the Omaha area. Now, their children are continuing their legacy of giving through a donation in their honor. “It was just an act of continuing to give in their name,” Tom Foley said of the $10,000 donation that he and his siblings Jamie and Chrysa made to Goodfellows this year in honor of their parents.

Anne died in January at age 90 and James, died in 2007 at 75. While Anne was a native of New York and James grew up in Grand Island, they lived in Omaha and Bellevue for several decades, Tom said. … Giving back to Goodfellows and other organizations was important to both Anne and James, Tom said. “They just believed in sharing their success and making sure they remembered others,” he said.

Tom said his parents instilled in him and his siblings the importance of helping others through hard times. “It’s a family value that’s carried on,” he said. While his siblings have both moved away, Tom remains in Omaha and …Tom said he himself has donated to Goodfellows for around 40 years and appreciates the organization’s history of helping people in need.

“Goodfellows has done a lot of great work over the years making an impact locally,” he said. Tom said he appreciates that Goodfellows provides one-time assistance to those who need help getting back on their feet. “It’s a safety net and it’s a boost, but it’s not a long-term answer,” he said. “But certainly people need a boost.”