HOW IT WORKS

From Thanksgiving until New Year's Day, The Patriot Ledger brings you stories about people in need on the South Shore and asks for yours help in getting them through difficult times.

 Bob and Julia Dupras of Randolph know what Christmas is all about.

After getting laid off, John and his young son moved from place to place while he looked for work. He finally scraped up enough money to get an apartment, but now he has little left for anything else. He and his 4-year-old boy have basic needs: groceries, beds and winter clothes.

A 14-year-old from Quincy writes about her aunt's struggle with breast cancer: "She never gave up on the days where it was very easy to. She always hoped and believed that tomorrow would be a better day. If one treatment didn’t work for her, she never stopped believing that the next one would. I can only wish that her story will inspire other cancer patients to always believe and keep fighting hard."

Instead of playing a basketball game, the Brockton Dukes team took time recently to wrap basketballs for some less fortunate kids in Stoughton.

In past years, a single mother of two mentally ill children has resisted accepting help from the Lend a Hand program, believing other families needed it assistance more than she does. This year, Colleen decided to tell her story, in hopes that it will bring more donations into the program.

No donation to The Enterprise’s Helping Hands fund is too small — even a nickel. But it’s even better if you can donate a lot of nickels, as the Pariseau family of Brockton has done — nickels totaling nearly $250 this year in memory of their late “Nana Sully.”

At South Shore Community Action Council, callers this year say they need help just getting a few presents to put under their trees for the kids. That is in addition to the growing requests for assistance with food, fuel and other basics. Open the story to hear the agency's executive director, Pat Daly, talk about the problem.

Last autumn, after falling behind several mortgage payments on their house in Plymouth, the foreclosure threats started and Scott and Kathryn Hodges, for the first time, feared homelessness. But in an unexpected twist of fortune, the couple found a local social service agency and their South Shore neighbors were willing to lend them a hand.