By ANDREW TOBIAS
Staff Writer

     Slightly bleary-eyed, Tisha Peyton pushed her orange shopping cart through the Coliseum on the Delaware County Fairgrounds Saturday morning. 
     Dodging volunteers of varying heights and ages, she filled her three paper grocery bags with tuna casserole, canned peas, applesauce and other foodstuffs. The bags would be set aside as “emergency bags” — to be given to a family made needy in the case of an unforeseen disaster. 
     Last year, emergency bags went to a family whose house burnt down. “You hope nothing happens, but we have to be prepared,” she said.
     For the past week, Peyton, 25, had been splitting time between working third shift at the Advance Auto Parts distribution center and volunteering mornings for PIN’s Holiday Clearing House.
     “It gets me into the holiday spirit,” said a weary Peyton.
     This is her 10th year volunteering for the clearing house. Despite the fatigue and occasional chaos, nothing is more rewarding than the end product, she said.
     “At the end, people who come in start crying. They say, ‘I didn’t know what I was going to do this Christmas otherwise. Thank you so much,’” she said.
     A record number of county residents contacted PIN this year for help, executive director Kevin Crowley said. For the day, Crowley expected to give 2,700 bags of food to nearly 500 families.
     Although Delaware County’s unemployment rate is relatively good compared to statewide figures, he said a lot of working people have seen their hours and benefits slashed.
     “We have so many new faces this year that we’ve never seen before,” Crowley said.
     At Sunday’s concluding event to the week-long Clearing House, PIN volunteers and staffers gave clients at least three bags of non-perishable food to each family, as well as toys, household items, wrapped gifts and fresh goods. All were donated. Clients are kept anonymous.
     People in Delaware County want to help. This (the Clearing House) becomes the catalyst for them to put into action what they feel in their hearts,” Crowley said.
     This year’s Holiday Clearing House was recordsetting in more ways than one — the 474 volunteers that gave their time Saturday is the most ever, PIN employees and volunteers said.         
     Those who couldn’t afford to donate money donated time this year, which office manager Carolyn Leasure said could explain the record volunteer turnout.
     “It’s their way of giving back to the community,” she said.
     Volunteers from area churches, companies, schools and other communities donated 823 total hours of their time this past Saturday.
     The Holiday Clearing House has been a county tradition for the past 54 years. PIN inherited the event in 1981, the year it was founded. Original volunteers have grown older, and their children are now volunteering alongside them.
     The event helps some of Delaware County’s neediest residents who have fallen on hard times, Crowley said.        
     "For some people, this is the only Christmas they've ever known," he said. 

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