Practical help, year-round.
Because a child's needs do not pause between holidays. Here is what we actually do — and who it is for.
When a child arrives at a grandparent's door, the first needs are the simplest ones. We meet them — and then we keep showing up.
Emergency clothing & diapers
When a child arrives with nothing — and many of them do — the first need is the simplest. Something clean to wear. Diapers for the baby. We step in fast, so a caregiver saying yes to a child never has to say no to a basic need.
Adopt-a-Child Christmas
Weekly through December, the trucks roll out — packed wall to wall with gifts from families and churches who quietly adopted a child they've never met. We sort, wrap, and load into the wee hours of the morning, every year overwhelmed by the generosity that comes back to us.
And every year, watching those trucks pull away into the night, it feels like the best thing we get to do.
Every program here runs on the people who quietly chose to help.
Support This WorkEaster baskets
For most kids the week after Easter is simple — you go to school and you share what the Easter bunny brought you. For the children we serve, that conversation is the hard one. Suffering and displacement is bad enough; being the only kid at the table with nothing to say is something else.
So every spring, churches and families pour in to help us assemble these baskets, and caravans of SUVs stuffed to the roof carry them out to every distribution spot across the cities we serve. One basket for every child — no exceptions — so each one knows they are special, and equal, even if their heart is heavier than the rest.
Kids' support groups
Grief is heavy, and it is heavier still when a child thinks they are carrying it alone. Our support groups give children a safe place to be honest — to share what they feel with others who understand, and to learn that none of this was their fault.
Some nights that means painting pumpkins together and sharing a meal with friends. Healing does not always look like sitting in a circle. Sometimes it looks like a kid getting to be a kid for the evening, surrounded by people who know.
Recreation & sports
Sometimes the most healing thing for a child is simply to be a child. We cover the cost of registration fees, cleats, and equipment so a kid can join the team — youth soccer, lacrosse, whatever brings them out into the world with other kids.
Outside the field, our older youth come together for cornhole afternoons, group meals, and the kind of casual hang time that lets a kid forget for a few hours that anything is hard. That part matters too.
Grief support & spiritual care
Grief after an overdose carries a weight other losses do not — the shame, the questions, the things never said. Our families do not walk through that alone. We bring in a chaplain from the Erie County Sheriff's Office to sit with grieving families and lead community gatherings where the hardest parts can finally be spoken out loud.
Sometimes what a family needs most is not advice or a program. It is someone who will sit with them, listen, and remind them they are still held.
Candlelight vigils
For the people we love who never made it out of this — and for the families still here, carrying their names — Project Noelle organizes candlelight vigils each year. We come together with community partners, light a candle for each one, and refuse to let them be forgotten.
If you have lost someone, you are welcome. You will find people who understand.
And then there is Sam
Sam Siverling is our Prevention Specialist on paper, on loan from the Ohio National Guard Counter Drug Program. In practice he is the guy doing whatever the day requires — running drug education in local schools, organizing fundraisers, packing trucks in the dead of Ohio winter, hauling inflatables out to family fun days, and pulling in his friends at the National Guard to help haul gifts for our kids from places like the Cleveland Clinic.
He even helped put together a Cleveland Guardians day for Project Noelle, working the PR end the way he works every other end. Whatever it takes.
Every nonprofit needs a Sam. We are lucky we have ours.
Support for grandparents & relatives
Behind almost every child we serve is a grandparent, aunt, or uncle who stepped up without hesitation. We support them too — with practical help and a community that understands, because no one should raise a grieving child alone.
A child’s needs do not pause between holidays.
Reaching out is simple, and it is private
If a child in your care needs help, we are here. If you want to help these children, we welcome you.
