Organizations collecting for Phyllis McCaul and Staton children:
For financial donations: Goodfellows, but specify McCaul-Staton family.
For clothing, gifts or other items:
In Omaha: National Alliance on Mental Illness, 415 S. 25th Ave., north door on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.
In Lincoln: Mental Health Association of Nebraska, 1645 N St. on weekdays during business hours.
Aunt Tiny couldn't afford to fix the heater on her 13-year-old Ford Escort, a car too small to ferry the seven great-nieces and great-nephews she adopted this year.
So she jerry-rigged a battery-powered camping heater.
When a car dealer offered help, the retired state worker prayed that the business would fix her car. Instead, it gave her a used minivan, licensed it and is paying to insure it for a year.
Sid Dillon of Lincoln's co-owner, Tim Pieper, made the first of four different offers of vans following The World-Herald's Thanksgiving Day article detailing the grueling and inspiring year that Phyllis “Tiny” McCaul had.
The children's widowed father made national news when he left nine of his 10 children at an Omaha hospital in September 2008 under Nebraska's former safe haven law.
When McCaul heard about the kids' situation, she jumped in her car and rounded up the seven youngest from foster care and a group home.
It took nearly a year to adopt them all, and now she is raising seven Staton children, ages 16 to almost 3, in a four-bedroom Lincoln apartment. The oldest two opted to stay with an Omaha guardian.
When readers heard about McCaul, who is single and trying to juggle a second round of child-rearing at age 60, they leaped at the chance to help her.
More than 50 people called or e-mailed the newspaper asking: What can I do?
Many opted to send money, which The World-Herald's Goodfellows charity is collecting and routing her way. As of Thursday, Goodfellows had collected $5,320 in donations to her. Goodfellows also is providing a grocery voucher for a holiday meal.
The charity provides one-time emergency assistance and clothing and shoes for schoolchildren in Omaha, and its holiday campaign under way right now will serve the needy in 2010.
Two organizations — one in Omaha, one in Lincoln — have opened their doors to collect items like clothing or toys for McCaul and the Staton children.
One Bellevue woman offered to throw a pizza party. A Council Bluffs woman made fleece blankets for each family member.
A Forest Lawn Cemetery assistant superintendent and his wife pledged to buy each child a gift card. A Union Pacific employee, who grew up one of 10 children, offered to drive gifts from Omaha to Lincoln.
Readers also have offered new clothing and towels, poinsettias and candy, and one 82-year-old woman offered to baby-sit.
Then there's the 32-year-old first-time mother in Omaha who didn't think any child should feel thrown away. This former public relations executive has organized a card and letter drive.
“I think it's important,” she said, “that those children know ... that they are surrounded by love.”
McCaul, who worked as a mental health liaison until she retired this year, continues to take each day as it comes. Wednesday, she was so stunned to get the minivan that she couldn't remember its color.
One surprise was that the van had a CD player. On the ride home, McCaul played Christmas music.
“All (11-year-old) Shawnee could say was, ‘This is perfect! This is beautiful! This is wonderful!'” McCaul recounted. At home, the family celebrated with footlong hotdogs.
McCaul is both humbled — “I've always been taught to help, not to be helped” — and deeply grateful.
“I'm just dumbfounded,” said McCaul. “I guess the only way I can say thank you is to raise good kids. I'm going to really have to work at getting doctors out of this group!”
Contact the writer:
444-1136, erin.grace@owh.com
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