Goodfellows eases holiday season woes for DeKalb, Sycamore area children in need

SYCAMORE – When Goodfellows get together, good things happen. That’s the mantra the local charity strives on and is hoping will resonate with the community.

Goodfellows of DeKalb and Sycamore is back this year to fulfill its mission of providing gifts to children in need at Christmas after the COVID-19 pandemic prompted organizers to find alternative means to make it happen.

“We buy clothes, we buy boots, shoes, hats, gloves, coats, things like that, so, that our motto is ‘No child without a Christmas,’” Goodfellows President Jason Weilbaker said.

Goodfellows raised money hoping to provide gifts for more than 1,000 area children this holiday season.

Weilbaker said the number of children that are served by the organization is steadily rising.

“It’s consistently grown every year,” Weilbaker said. “However, with the pandemic, we saw a drop in that first year in 2020, but we’ve been building those numbers back up as well. So, we anticipate every year going forward, that it’ll continue to grow.”

Goodfellows has a long history of making a difference in the lives of children in the DeKalb and Sycamore area.

“There’s a lot of people here that have been doing it for well over 30 years,” Weilbaker said. “The organization, I think, dates back even before that. But a lot of people here [are] still involved that have been doing it for a really long time. I got involved about eight or nine years ago through my father-in-law who has been with the organization over 30 years.”

Goodfellows is a charity staffed entirely by volunteers from the community. Despite how long the charity has been around and spreading holiday cheer to area children, the organization’s efforts are still a big undertaking, Weilbaker said.

“There’s been a lot of changes probably in the last decade but more specifically last five years where we used to work with JCPenney,” Weilbaker said. “They’re no longer in business, but they used to shop for us. So, then we had to pivot and find our own volunteers to help us shop, which is a big undertaking.”

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought another share of challenges to the organization.

“Through the pandemic, there was a lot of changes,” Weilbaker said. “We used to have an annual fundraiser party that we used to have in PJs. Those kind of normal avenues were a little bit different. Even on Christmas Eve morning, having people come here was a little bit different. We did a drive-thru. We were outside. We would load things directly into people’s cars. It was more like a contact-less thing.”

In non-pandemic years, the organization has hosted volunteers Christmas Eve morning who pile into cars with wrapped goodies to hand out to area families.

Goodfellows works with different organizations and school districts to identify students in the community needing help. Volunteers may assist the charity with fundraising, shopping, wrapping and distribution. Weilbaker said fundraising is generally going well allowing the organization to expand its reach.

“It’s a challenge to be able to raise money continuously,” he said. “Years ago, we kind of started to spend more and more on each kid. We want to be able to kind of grow that number to be able to provide, keep up with inflation and just how much stuff costs in general. … Every year, no matter how dire it kind of feels for us internally, our community is just so amazing. They continue to show up. They continue to help support us. Even though we think it’s a bleak outlook, we are always able to hit our numbers because the community itself is just incredible.”