ELIZABETHTOWN — Applications for the Empty Stocking Fund can be made starting Tuesday.
They are only available at the Bladen County Department of Social Services, 208 E. McKay St. in Elizabethtown. This is also where applications should be returned, using the black mailbox outside of the agency lobby. It is a locked mailbox used to reduce client entrance to the building because of coronavirus protocols.
Applications — in English and Spanish — will be placed outside in a filing cabinet, clearly marked, by the agency’s front door.
Those who were selected for vouchers in 2019 are not eligible this year, just as with past protocols.
Applications are being accepted through Dec. 11.
The Empty Stocking Fund is the annual drive to help provide a better Christmas for the less fortunate. The program is a partnership of the Bladen Journal, DSS, the Robeson County United Way and Leinwand’s in downtown Elizabethtown.
Donations, thanks to United Way, can be tax deductible when checks are made payable to Empty Stocking Fund/United Way and dropped off at the newspaper’s temporary office at 207 E. Broad St. in Elizabethtown. Cash is also accepted. To mail a donation, send it to Bladen Journal, c/o Empty Stocking Fund, PO Box 70, Elizabethtown, NC 28337; mailing cash is not recommended.
Donations can be made through Dec. 11.
The newspaper office is in the same building as the Elizabethtown-White Lake Area Chamber of Commerce. It is next to the Bladen County Public Library, and across the intersection from the new fire station.
Donors will be asked their name, but can give anonymously. Those names, or anonymous listing, will appear in the newspaper along with the size of the gift.
Making the most recent donations:
• Cephus J. Beatty, $50.
• Bethlehem United Methodist Church, $100.