Even with economic hardships throughout the country, many organizations are making the holidays brighter thanks to steady or increased donations.

A penny drive coordinated at Escambia County Middle School by the Lambda Ladies Civic Club generated $422.49 in funds that were presented to the Empowerment Tabernacle Friday. That contribution will benefit the Toys for Tots program for the county.

Darryl North, pastor at Empowerment Tabernacle, accepted the contribution from the group as well as a $100 contribution from the local Future Business Leaders of American chapter.

“These contributions will help us to serve more children this year through this program,” North said. “We served about 3,500 children last year in the county. This is our third year with this program and we want to try to get Escambia County more involved.”

North said his church were joined in a partnership of local groups and businesses to help make the 2010 Toys for Tots better than last year’s collections.

Cordia Lee and Tamara French, sponsors of the Lambda group, said the group made donations of toys in addition to the cash collections.

“We held the penny drive here at school to collect money for the program,” Lee said. “We are also making a donation of some toys to the program as well.”

North said businesses who partnered with the church and school this year included First National Bank, YMCA, Gulf Winds Federal Credit Union, Poarch Creek Indians, Harold Allen, Westside Storage, Pizza Hut, Alto Productions, Frontier Communications, Wrangler’s and Dollar General.

Other groups who work throughout the year to help those in need have said donations throughout the community have remained steady with regular contributors and even new faces making an appearance in the contribution field.

Herbert Payne with the Progressive Civic and Recreation Club of Atmore said donations have generally been steady for the group.

“We are holding our own right now,” Payne said. “We are about where we were last year with donations.”

Although the group is holding a steady pattern in the donation amounts, the scope of those who donate has changed.

“We have some people that always give to the group,” Payne said. “Some donations have been down a little. We have one donor who actually increased their gift this year and it certainly helped.”

At We Care Economy Shop in downtown Atmore, donations did see a decline during part of the year.

Mary Thomas, manager at We Care, said the donations have become more steady recently.

“Our donations have been pretty steady lately,” Thomas said. “The donations had dropped off some, but things are picking back up and we are really steady right now.”

Thomas said donations to the economy shop usually run in cycles.

“We do get more donations after yard sales weekends,” Thomas said. “In the summer people are getting rid of winter stuff and in the winter people are getting rid of summer stuff. It usually runs in that kind of cycle.”

Any donations made to We Care Economy Shop can be considered tax deductible. Thomas said donations made during business hours will receive a tax receipt if requested.

“People can drop their items off at any time,” Thomas said. “If they want a tax receipt they will have to make (the donation) during business hours. If they don’t want a receipt they can make the drop off at anytime. We have drop boxes in the front and back of the store for people to make those donations.”

Store hours at We Care Economy Shop are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Those who were on the search for toys for children in need this holiday season came up a little short of hoped-for goals.

Zack Stewart, a firefighter with the Atmore Fire Department, said the response for a toy drive was less than expected during this year’s drive. The local firefighter’s group held an “Up On the Rooftop” toy drive three weeks ago in an effort to collect toys for needy children in the community.

“Last year we had about two truck loads of donated toys,” Stewart. “This year we only had one truck load. You could certainly tell what a difference the economy has had on everyone with this year’s donations.”

Stewart said the variety of ways donations were received were a little different this year.

“We did have more people to make cash contributions this year,” Stewart said. “That was a little different than what we had seen in the past. Those donations helped just as much as if they had donated a toy.”

Stewart said the contribution made by the Poarch Creek Fire Department also helped with the special toy drive.

“We need to say a special ‘thank you’ to the Poarch Fire Department,” Stewart said. “They allowed us to use their truck and it really helped us a lot.”

Although most charitable organizations say donations are showing small changes, most are thankful for everything they do receive to pass along to those in need.

“The donations we received this year were off a good bit from last year,” Stewart said. “But, even if they were, we still got enough that we could make a difference in some child’s life this Christmas.”