LI charities see rise in holiday donations

Donations to many Long Island charities went up in response to their Christmas and New Year's appeals - a hopeful sign for groups struggling though the economic downturn.

Roy Gross, chief of department with the Suffolk County SPCA, said his group received nearly $6,000 from its end-of-the-year request - about a 10-fold increase from what it received in the 2009 appeal.

"It was a lot better than last year," Gross said. "If that's an indication of the future, then that's a good thing."

Many nonprofits had not fully tallied total donations from the end of 2010. But at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Long Island, donations recovered to the point that the agency is planning to lift a freeze of services and take on more children to mentor by the end of the first quarter, said Mark Cox, chief development officer.

"I just think we're being successful at raising money, and people are being generous in giving," Cox said.

The Salvation Army continues to count donations to its red buckets, but so far Nassau County is up about 4 to 5 percent, while Suffolk County is slightly behind what it yielded last year, said Denver Frederick, director of development for the Salvation Army Greater New York Division.

"In both Nassau and Suffolk we've had to work a little bit harder and employ more volunteers in terms of ringing the bells," said Frederick. "It's not been an easy year." Nonetheless, he predicted red-kettle collections would be higher than in 2009.

The Interfaith Nutrition Network in Hempstead also continues to sift through its end-of-year donations.

"We always see that at the end of the year, we see a rush of people giving because they want the tax break," said spokeswoman Cynthia Sucich. "But we'll take it, we'll take it."

For the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, the last quarter of the year - which covers Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and the deadline for annual tax-deductible donations - typically is when Long Islanders share the most of their generosity, said spokesman Umberto Mignardi.

"We find that people are ultra-generous at this time of year," said Mignardi, who added that nearly half of the agency's donations come during October, November and December. "The problem is that the donations drop off so notably in January and the needs don't."