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Empty Stocking Fund

The Charlotte Observer helps raise money for The Salvation Army to give gifts and necessities to those in need.

The Charlotte Observer has sponsored the Empty Stocking Fund since about 1920. All money contributed goes to The Salvation Army’s Christmas Center, which buys toys, food, clothing and gift cards for families.

Donate Now

Charlotte Observer readers helped kids and adults during the holidays. Here’s how.

Joe Marusak
The Charlotte Observer

Charlotte Observer readers donated more than $164,000 to the paper’s Empty Stocking Fund this holiday season to help local families in need, Salvation Army officials said.

The Salvation Army of Greater Charlotte’s Angel Tree program matches children in need with anonymous donors who buy them presents for Christmas, and provides senior citizens with gifts. In cases where donors didn’t step up, Charlotte Observer readers covered the expense by giving to the Empty Stocking Fund.

A Christmas program helped her family in the 1970s. She’s returned the favor for 20 years

Gordon Rago
The Charlotte Observer

Alex Wilson has been volunteering with the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program for 20 years — but her connection to the annual program goes back even further.

As a girl growing up in northwest Charlotte in the 1970s, Wilson’s family struggled. When she was 4, her father died. A couple years later, her mother, a registered nurse, hurt her back at a second job and wasn’t able to keep working.

‘It makes my heart grow.’ Wells Fargo worker on his 14th year with Angel Tree program

Catherine Muccigrosso
The Charlotte Observer

It started with just a couple hours in December 2008 helping to get donated gifts ready for Charlotte families. Now 14 years later, Matt Leonard will spend more than 32 hours over four days volunteering to help the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program.

“I’ve done every role there,” Leonard, 40, told The Charlotte Observer in a recent interview.

With Salvation Army help, dad hopes a bike will change daughter’s mind about Santa

Hannah Lang
The Charlotte Observer

Sergio Ayerdiz recently got a call from the Charlotte elementary school teacher of his daughter, Hannah. His teacher said he might want to talk to her — 7-year-old Hannah was telling other children at school she didn’t believe in Santa Claus.

Ayerdiz hopes a special gift this Christmas, with the help of the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree Program, might change her mind.

‘Praying for a good Christmas’: Angel Tree program helps mom raising daughter, grandkids

Catherine Muccigrosso
The Charlotte Observer

Brandy Winston wants to give her teen daughter and two young grandchildren a happy Christmas in Charlotte. But she needs help.

The 40-year-old single mother known as “Ms. B” has two daughters. She’s also the guardian of her two grandchildren.

Three years ago, Winston said her eldest daughter Angel was shot by her then-husband just days before Thanksgiving at their home in Virginia. Angel was four months pregnant with her second child.

Observer readers pitch in again for Empty Stocking Fund to help Christmas program

Joe Marusak
The Charlotte Observer

Thousands of Charlotte-area children will receive gifts of clothes and toys under the Christmas tree again this year, thanks to contributors to The Salvation Army of Greater Charlotte’s annual Angel Tree program.

In cases where donors don’t step up, Charlotte Observer readers cover the expense by giving to the Empty Stocking Fund, which the Observer has sponsored since about 1920.