The Fox Valley's answer to Santa and Mrs. Claus
If Virginia had any doubts at all about Santa, she'd have no trouble believing in Don and Tory Haines, a St. Charles couple who could easily qualify as Mr. and Mrs. Claus during the holidays.
In fact, Don Haines spends so much time collecting toys at this time of year for the Fox Valley Marines Toys for Tots program, he hopes the toys will eventually fill up a major portion of a 7,000-square-foot warehouse in the Batavia Enterprises building on the east side of St. Charles.
In the meantime, Tory Haines is working diligently as the director of the Embrace a Family organization, a support group “to provide practical assistance to the daily lives” of single moms and their families.
The Toys for Tots program will collect up to 15,000 new toys for more than 800 children, while Embrace a Family makes the holidays more enjoyable for 131 children in 66 families.
Any way you do the math, it is of Santa Claus proportions.
“It's a tremendous amount of work and organization, but it's all worth it on Christmas morning when you know that a lot of kids will have a Christmas who might not normally have had one,” said Don Haines, who has directed the toy drive for the local Marine Corps Reserve detachment for the past four years and has been involved in other toy drives for 14 years. “It's all about the kids, and that's all there is to it.”
Don Haines, who served with the Marines from 1962 to 1968, is a lifelong St. Charles resident who promotes his toy drive by using the many contacts he has cultivated through his membership in the Tri-Cities Exchange Club service organization and 10 years as a St. Charles alderman.
“We work with various charities and church groups to get the names and ages of the kids, and they send us their Christmas list,” Haines said. “And then we try to fill that list, bag it all and take it over to the organization or group that will actually hand it out,” said Haines, who also serves on the Marines' Patriot Guard and Warriors Watch to welcome returning veterans.
“It eventually all comes together, and on Christmas morning it makes the past three months absolutely worth it.”
Making the Christmas season easier and more pleasant for single moms falls into Tory Haines' mission with Embrace a Family, an organization she helped create five years ago from an idea first proposed by Judy Mann of Batavia.
“Judy had the idea, and I had the (accounting and budgeting) skills to get it off the ground and make it a tax-deductible 501c3 organization,” said Tory, a certified public accountant at Jones, Sager and Haines and Co. LLP in St. Charles.
Tory's involvement with Embrace a Family was a direct result of doing previous pro bono tax and family budgeting work for the Single Moms group at TriCity Family Services.
“The Single Moms group was an excellent therapy model monitored by social workers to help the moms through the trauma of divorce, but many (moms) were still overwhelmed by things in daily life and many had jobs and no time for meetings,” Tory said.
“What many really needed was an ‘exchange medium' in which they could determine, ‘I'm good at this, and you're good at that,' and we can swap services.”
Ninety percent of the moms in Embrace a Family have jobs and are trying to be self-supporting, Tory Haines said.
“These moms just don't have time, so we help with getting school supplies lists from teachers and then go get those supplies,” she added. “We are not specifically a charity, but a support group for moms.”
Tory Haines said the organization attempts to set up networks for the moms to connect with professionals and experts in various fields when help is needed.
“We do Christmas stockings, connect with Toys for Tots, Easter baskets, school supplies and clothing exchanges for the moms,” Tory Haines said. “But mostly we mention available services in a positive manner so the moms are able to keep moving up and be positive about their lives.”
While the short-term work involves serving all of the moms in Embrace a Family, Tory Haines has a wish list of her own for a long-range goal: “I would love to someday own an apartment building that would help out the moms where they could all live near each other and help each other out, and we could possibly help with rent, but that hasn't happened yet.”
The Haineses were honored in January of 2009 by the city of St. Charles with the coveted Charlemagne Award for their charitable work. And they point to their own moms as the guiding lights.
“Tory and I both had single moms, and they always provided us with what we needed, and this is our way of giving back,” Don Haines said.
Those moms also did Don and Tory a big favor some 44 years ago.
“They knew each other and were friends, and they set Tory and I up for a date,” Don fondly recalls.
Don and Tory, both now 66 years old, took that date and ran with it and have been married for 43 years and have a son, Jack; a daughter, Melissa, and four grandsons.
Those interested in donating or finding drop-off sites for the Fox Valley Toys for Tots can obtain information at the foxvalleytoysfortots.com website; and information for Embrace a Family is available at embracafamily.com.