Today’s news / Call for extra Xmas aid to poor families

Call for extra Xmas aid to poor families

Social Affairs and Housing Minister Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil is proposing that an extra ten million kroner be allocated for the distribution of Christmas aid this year, she wrote in a letter to the Liberal Party’s social affairs spokesperson, Anni Matthiesen. The extra funding needs to be provided because the organisations that distribute Christmas aid are again experiencing an increase in the number of applications this year, the letter says. “I believe that further measures are needed to help socially vulnerable families with children who are financially squeezed and who cannot afford to spend Christmas with food and gifts,” the minister writes.
     Three weeks ago, Anni Matthiesen called for extra funding to be found. “I think it’s only natural to try to help these families, whether they’re children or single mothers. I think it is almost everywhere in the country that there are waiting lists for Christmas aid,” the social affairs spokesperson said Tuesday. She believes that there has been a hard task in finding the extra funds that will make a big difference. “When we’re in a situation where there’s a relatively large amount of money to share, we can’t not find money for this group of people,” she says. The extra ten million will be distributed as a direct grant to the 21 organisations that have received grants from the application pool to support nationwide distribution of Christmas aid. /ritzau/