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The holidays are fast approaching, and as time ticks down to find a gift, one local non-profit is asking for your help.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have over 1800 people that we have taken responsibility to make sure that they get to celebrate the holidays this year,\u201d said Colleen Rodriguez, CEO of LJD Jewish Family and Community Services.<\/p>\n
Those people are foster kids, seniors and holocaust survivors.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Rodriguez said, in years past, more than a thousand wish list items would have been wrapped, packed and sent out by now. But as of Monday, they were 150 short.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be this late in the game and still have 150 people to be adopted, that is unusual for us,\u201d said Rodriguez.<\/p>\n The group has noticed a jump in need this year as many families say they have struggled financially. They\u2019re turning to nonprofits for help.<\/p>\n The Jacksonville-based organization serving families across Northeast Florida wants to make sure those who want a gift will be able to get one, no matter their situation.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n Rodriguez said they help anyone who needs it, and about 80% of their clients are not Jewish.<\/p>\n \u201cThere wasn\u2019t anything under the tree or anything in the stocking, how would that feel? Right? It\u2019s it gives you value that someone\u2019s thinking about you, that someone cares about you, and that it\u2019s important. And the holiday that you celebrate and you believe in, it\u2019s important to celebrate it,\u201d said Rodriguez.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>]<\/p>\n You can help by donating or signing up to be a sponsor<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThey can get matched with a child or a senior. They\u2019ll be given a wish list. We ask for around $75. If you have children, I suggest you adopt a child that\u2019s the same age as your child,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n If you donate money starting Monday until December 15th, LJD Jewish Family and Community Service will match the donation.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The holidays are fast approaching, and as time ticks down to find a gift, one local non-profit is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[43011,43014,43013,116,118,117,43012],"class_list":["post-76153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-colleen-rodriguez","tag-fast-approaching","tag-holocaust-survivors","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-ljd-jewish-family-and-community-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}