Register for the Holiday Effort 2024!

Holiday Effort

Welcome to our 28th Annual Frank and Rosemary Iovieno Caring for Children Holiday Effort for 2024! Last year’s Holiday Effort was a huge success for the Caring for Children organization as we helped over 850+ children thanks again to the participation and generosity of thousands of sponsors (corporate and individual sponsorship). The children we support have life-threatening and/or life-limiting illnesses (siblings included) and live throughout Massachusetts and upstate New York. We are hoping to help more children this year.  Please visit Holiday Effort page to learn how you can help, including Sponsoring A Child, Providing A Monetary Donation, Providing A Gift Card Donation, or Sponsoring a Gift Basket.

Welcome to Caring for Children!

The Frank and Rosemary Iovieno Caring for Children Foundation (“Caring for Children”) supports families with children suffering from life-threatening and life-limiting illnesses. Caring for Children focuses its support by providing for the children’s basic needs (e.g., clothes, food, housing needs, etc.) and funding educational and enrichment opportunities. We focus much of our support during the holiday season, but we are a year-round provider to people in need. This support would not be possible without the efforts of all of our generous participants which include individuals, families, and corporate sponsors via our annual Holiday Effort fundraising campaign.

Did You Know We Helped Over 850 Children for our Caring for Children 2023 Holiday Effort?

How You Can Help

Sponsor A Child

Sponsor a Child or Family

This donation option allows a volunteer or a group of volunteers to sponsor a child or a family. All volunteers who sponsor a child will receive a personal profile on the child they are assigned, which has been written by the child’s social worker. The personal profile includes clothing sizes, special interests, and “special requests.” We recommend that sponsoring a child requires a minimum of $150-200 per child to ensure a level of equity between all the children within a family. Click here to register to sponsor a child or family.

Monetary Donation

Monetary Donation

A monetary donation can be made in any amount to Caring for Children, which is entirely tax deductible. All monetary donations are used to provide for basic needs and/or educational and enrichment opportunities throughout the year. Donations may be made by credit card or by mailing a check directly to Caring for Children.  Please make your check payable to Frank and Rosemary Iovieno Caring for Children, and send it to Caring for Children, 260 Mountain Drive, Pittsfield, MA 01201.

Gift Card Donation

Gift Card Donation

In lieu of sponsoring a child, any one of these gift card donation options would be a wonderful way to help the children we care for. All donations are tax deductible and will allow us to help the children we follow, especially the children not sponsored directly by volunteers. There are a variety of different gift cards to choose from, and all gift cards will be utilized to help the children during the holidays or throughout the year. We appreciate all gift cards but clothing and food store gift cards would meet the most urgent needs for children and families. Please click here to register for a gift card donation and to receive mailing instructions.

Gift Basket Donation

Gift Basket for an Adolescent

A Gift Basket for an Adolescent is an excellent option for a volunteer/volunteers who want to help a child in need but have time constraints in shopping for the clothing and other gifts required in sponsoring a child. This donation option, an adolescent gift basket, will provide you with a story on an adolescent boy or girl, and will provide you with the basic elements (primarily gift cards) for assembling an appropriate gift basket. We recommend that typical gift basket will cost $150-$200, and can be handled individually or by a team. Please click here to register to give a gift basket.

How You Can Help

How You Can Help

We will be gearing up for 28th Annual Holiday Effort in November of 2024. There will be several ways to participate to make a difference in the lives of the children who Caring for Children helps. You can sponsor a child or a family, provide a monetary donation, donate a gift card or sponsor a gift basket. ALL of our donation/sponsor options below are tax-deductible. Learn about all the ways you can help.

Wrapping Party Volunteer

Wrapping Party Volunteers

Are you a High School student who is looking for some community service hours? Caring for Children needs 10 student volunteers at our Wrapping Party on Sunday, December 15th, from 11:30 am to 4 pm at the Lexington High School Field House. Your role entails greeting sponsors when they arrive with their bags of gifts, bringing the bags into the Field House, and helping the sponsors check-in with the Caring for Children Staff. As a 501c-certified charity, we will send out a completion letter to all participants for their community service hours.

What We Do

Holiday Effort

Holiday Effort Home

Caring for Children’s main fundraising activity is our annual Holiday Effort to raise money to help children and families dealing with life-threatening and life-limiting illnesses during the all-important holiday season. In 1997, 40 volunteers took care of 25 children, and now we are incredibly proud to be celebrating our 28th Anniversary this year. In 2023, we had over 1,000 volunteers, 21+ Corporate sponsorships, and eclipsed a milestone in helping over 850+ children and raising the most donations ever. Our Holiday Effort culminates in our annual Wrapping Party, which provides an opportunity to gather our individual and corporate donors together for a festive afternoon. This year the Wrapping Party will be on Sunday, December 15th, from 12-4 PM. Caring for Children utilizes the generosity of our monetary donations to not only provide additional support during the holidays to children who are not directly sponsored but also to fund our year-round educational and enrichment activities. All donation/sponsor options below are tax-deductible. For more information about each of the fundraising options, please visit our How You Can Help page.

Who We Help

Who We Help Home

We help families with children suffering from life-threatening illnesses by coordinating with social work and palliative care organizations to identify families in need. Caring for Children provides for the basic needs of children, e.g., clothes, food, housing needs, etc., as well as funding educational and enrichment opportunities. Learn more about Who We Help.

Wrapping Party

Wrapping Party Home

As part of our Holiday Effort, we invite all sponsors/participants and their families to our annual Wrapping Party. For Holiday Effort 2024, the Wrapping Party will be Sunday, December 15th, from 12-4pm at the Lexington Field House on the campus of Lexington High, 251 Waltham Street, Lexington, MA. We will provide plenty of wrapping paper, tape, scissors, and a jolly good time for all! Everyone participating in this year’s Holiday Effort 2024 will receive more information after you register, and attending the WP is not a requirement for participating as alternative plans for your gifts can be made. Note: We do ask that if you are dropping off gifts, you do so by 3pm.

What’s New

Holiday Effort

Kicking Off Our 28th Annual Holiday Effort

Welcome to the official Kick-Off of the 28th Annual Frank and Rosemary Iovieno Caring for Children Holiday Effort for 2024! We are looking to build upon another successful Holiday Effort last year, during which 800+ children were directly sponsored by numerous companies and individuals. We received a record-setting amount of donations to help the children and families in additional ways, not only during the holiday season but also throughout the entire year. Just a note: If you’d like to Sponsor A Child and be matched before Thanksgiving, kindly register by Friday, November 22nd. However, as always, the earlier, the better.
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CFC 2023 Register

Kicking Off Our 27th Annual Holiday Effort

Welcome to our 27th Annual Frank and Rosemary Iovieno Caring for Children Holiday Effort for 2023! Last year's 26th Holiday Effort was a huge success for the Caring for Children organization as we helped over 800+ children. We have never eclipsed 800 children before, so this was a monumental and memorable effort that we take great pride in. We would like to once again send out a huge thanks to the participation and generosity of thousands of sponsors (corporate and individual sponsorship) for enabling Caring for Children to achieve such a milestone effort. The children we support have life-threatening and/or life-limiting illnesses (siblings included) and live throughout Massachusetts and upstate New York.
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CFC 2021 John

Kicking Off Our 25th Annual Holiday Effort

Welcome to our milestone 25th Annual Frank and Rosemary Iovieno Caring for Children Holiday Effort for 2021! Last year’s Holiday Effort was a stellar effort for the Caring for Children organization despite the pandemic as we helped over 550+ children once again through the participation and generosity of thousands of sponsors (corporate and individual sponsorship). These children have life-threatening and life-limiting illnesses (siblings included) and live throughout Massachusetts and upstate New York.
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New Website

New Website for Caring for Children

We are so excited to launch our newly-designed website today! We conducted this months-long website design effort to improve our branding and provide better functionality to our audience. We wanted to make the new website faster, easier to navigate, and more user-friendly. This new website provides a fantastic place to showcase our excellent volunteers, our fantastic organizations, and our generous donors.
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Corporate Sponsors 2020

Thank You To Our 2020 Corporate Sponsors

We want to say thank you to our tremendous 2020 Corporate Sponsors that generously donated to our Caring for Children Foundation Holiday Effort for 2020 as we were able to help 550+ children with life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses and their siblings (over 235 families) throughout Massachusetts and Upstate New York! It would be an understatement to say that 2020 was challenging for everyone, but we were able to match our support from 2019!
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24th Wrapping Party

Our 24th Annual Wrapping Party 2020

Thank you to everyone who came to drop-off their gifts today, putting a proverbial “bow” on this year’s Caring for Children 24th Holiday Effort – albeit under very different circumstances as we were not able to have our traditional Wrapping Party & Holiday Celebration event!
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Thanks to our Corporate Sponsors!