Annual Help Them to Hope campaign fund kicks off

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News Sun pressman showed their support for the newspaper’s annual Help Them to Hope Fund in December 1963. (Left to right) Ernie “Bishop” Miller, George “Knobby” Houchin, Jim “Zippy” Marth, Ed “Mac” McNeany, Bob “Foots” Haymaker, George “Krobar” Eaton, Charles Eaton and Ed “Skid” Toll. | Sun-Times Media file

Updated: December 26, 2011 8:50AM

For more than half a century, Help Them to Hope has served to remind, remember and give without expectation of return.

The Lake County News-Sun’s annual holiday campaign has raised money for Lake County neighbors in need since 1959, when the newspaper opened to the larger community an in-house collection started by its pressmen two years earlier.

The fund, which began with $50 in crumpled, leftover coffee club cash, goes to support local service agencies that offer direct assistance to those in need of food, clothing and emergency shelter.

To date, Help Them to Hope has collected and distributed $2.23 million. Last year’s total was $54,500.

“We’re very particular who we give it to and how they spend it,” said Bob Haymaker, of Waukegan, a member of the Help Them to Hope board of directors. “Agencies have to show how they spend the donations, that it doesn’t go for salaries, but directly to the people.”

Haymaker was 18, two weeks out of high school, when he was hired by The News-Sun in 1962. He soon earned an apprenticeship in the pressroom, where he worked for the next 33 years. The old News-Sun building in downtown Waukegan, the birthplace of Help Them to Hope and the place where Haymaker once made lead castings for display ads, is undergoing demolition. But Haymaker isn’t sad.

“Buildings come and go,” he said. “But the campaign shows the area is still a very close community, that they still care about the people in their community and that they are very giving.

“The giving may be a little less,” Haymaker said. “But they’re still giving and they’re still caring.”

Every cent of the fund goes to the those in need. All administrative costs of the collection, including accounting, publicity and disbursement are absorbed by the Lake County News-Sun and NorStates Bank. Donations, which are often made in memory of departed loved ones, are published in the newspaper and on the collection’s Web site at www.helpthemtohope.com.

Haymaker and George Houchin of Waukegan and George Eaton of Winthrop Harbor, two retired pressmen who helped to found Help them to Hope, have presented checks to recipient agencies in recent years.

“It’s a nice, warm feeling and an honor, after all these years, for the guys in the pressroom,” Haymaker said.