NPR's Noah Adams tells Morning Edition today about a longtime holiday charity drive in Canton:

The fund was started by three retired businessmen who had been fascinated by a story published in the local newspaper, The Repository, at Thanksgiving. The story told of an act of kindness during the Great Depression. Using the pseudonym B. Virdot, a Canton merchant had put an ad in the paper asking people who needed financial help to write. He then sent $5 checks to 150 families.

The checks are now worth $100 and awarded by three clergymen. The Repository's executive editor, Jeff Gauger, cited a November story on Census data that found nearly 25% of Canton-area children are poor:

The number of Stark County children who lived in poverty last year easily could fill the classroom seats in the Canton City, North Canton, Jackson Local and Osnaburg Local school districts — combined.

And a handful of them still would have had to stand in the back.

That's about 20,882 children.