From the Dispatcher January 2003

Article from the January 2004 Dispacther

With Seattle's economy in a slump, longshore Local 19's annual holiday drive faced a special urgency this season. The members and their families were determined to respond, and 20 volunteers from ILWU families raised nearly $15,000 to buy presents and food for distressed families.

Local 19 set up the ILWU Christmas for Kids Program as a special, tax-exempt foundation to sponsor the annual drives some 20 years ago. Members sign up to donate throughout the year.

This year the union had an opportunity to share union solidarity as well as holiday cheer with locked-out Teamsters. Local 19 supported the Darigold creamery workers when the company locked them out last August. Since then the company outsourced 60 driver jobs and eliminated 14 warehouse jobs. In all some 300 Teamsters are out of work and Darigold products are now on the AFL-CIO boycott list. Local 19's Curt Cunningham and his partner Leona contacted Teamsters Local 66 President Mark Jones and asked what their families were doing for Christmas.

"Mark Jones told us some of the Darigold families were going to have a pretty bleak Christmas," Curt Cunningham said. "So we offered to adopt 15 families for a Christmas party."

Local 19 turned their hall into a party room Dec. 19 for 11 of the 15 Teamster families. The longshore workers spent about $60 on gifts per child and provided gift certificates from local grocery stores for their holiday meal. The four families that couldn't make it got their presents from their union staffers who made sure the gifts were hand-delivered.

The regular work of the ILWU Christmas for Kids Program went on as well. Volunteers first consult ministries or social workers who locate truly needy families and then deliver the presents.

"One of the homes we went to had no presents under the tree and eight kids," Cunningham said. "They looked at us and must have thought 'who are these people with longshore jackets and big red bags?' Their faces lit up when we pulled out the presents and called out each child's name. They took the presents and put them under the tree."

Local 19 members also get the union's name out and show community involvement.

"Leona and I always wear our longshore colors when we go shopping for the gifts," Cunningham said. Leona is a past president of ILWU Federated Auxiliary 3. "She got in a conversation with an elderly couple and told them we were shopping for needy kids. They said 'I didn't know longshoremen did that.' Well, there's another convert."

Leona Cunningham reported on another Christmas phenomena, the benefits those who give receive from their actions. Some local kids had a little trouble with the authorities the previous year and were sentenced to do community service. They carried out their stretch with the Christmas program.

"They were completely transformed," she said. "They were so moved by giving to those who had nothing they went and donated their own presents. They came back this year to volunteer again."

—Tom Price