Local Nonprofit Helps Brighten the Holiday Season For Families in Need in Pasadena

For families in need, the holiday season can be particularly stressful and challenging. In keeping with their yearly tradition, Families Forward Learning Center, which provides free education and social services to low-income families in Pasadena, is holding its annual Adopt-a-Family program this holiday season. 

Community members are encouraged to donate Christmas gifts and much-needed essentials for families in need.

“Families Forward has been doing the Adopt-a-Family program for over 15 years. Under the program we have generous donors that adopt one of our families,” Development Director at Families Forward Learning Center, Liz Kwong said. 

Last year, 130 local families were beneficiaries, Kwong said.

“Under this program, donor families are encouraged to provide wrapped gifts for each family member, an optional household gift for parents, or a grocery gift card for a holiday meal,” Kwong added. 

Donors can deliver donations or ship them to the Families Forward Learning Center, at 980 N Fair Oaks Ave., on or before December 12. Staff and volunteers at the Center will wrap the gifts, and adopted families can pick them up the week of December 14 to 16.

Cash donations will be used to purchase gifts so they can be delivered on time.

“We have 90 families through our actual center, and then we have some through other groups that are related to us that we help with,” Kwong said. 

“There’s an organization in Pasadena called Growing Together Pasadena, and we take some families from that organization also because a lot of them have been alumni from us or they’ve been related to us in some way, or we helped them with some services.”

“A lot of our wonderful donors are the same every year because they really like the program and they sign up. I send them the donor family’s wish list and they deliver these wonderful baskets full of gifts,” she added. “And to most of our families, it’s the only Christmas that they have. So it’s really a special thing to be able to help them.”

Families Forward Learning Center provides free education and social services to low-income families with children from birth to five years old. Serving the Pasadena area since 1961, the group’s services are based on a two-generation learning model that empowers both parents and children to gain knowledge and skills that improve outcomes for the entire family.

“In so doing, we ensure that children in our program are safe, healthy and developmentally on-track, while enhancing parents’ skills, literacy and self-sufficiency so that they can be active participants and advocates for their children’s education,” the organization says on its website.

Learning programs are offered at the Center Monday through Friday and include early childhood education, parent education, adult education, mental health support, and leadership training. The programs also include a teen parenting program, a fathers’ support group, and an Early Readers’ Book Club.

For the Adopt-a-Family program, donations may range from $150 for a family of two to $400 for a family of seven, Kwong said.

For more information on the Adopt-a-Family program, please contact Liz@familiesforwardlc.org.