Websites connect donors to specific needs

For Taylor, changing the giving culture is just as important as the grants. "People think they can't do that much, but they find out that the $5 they would have spent on a fast-food lunch has the power to really change someone's life – a very specific person they choose to help," he says.

Jennie and Dan Keeran, who moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 2005, had a similar desire to help strangers in need – the homeless men they saw on city streets. When they took coffee and food to one of them, they saw he was making a beautiful etching on the back of a mirror. Learning his story stirred them.

"We thought if others heard their stories, they would want to help," Ms. Keeran says. They also created a website – HomelessPartners.com – to encourage people to connect with individual homeless people in Vancouver. Working through a local shelter, they interviewed some men and put their stories on the site along with their wish lists for Christmas. Then they sent out a press release.

"A lot of people responded in a very short time," with gifts, cards, and letters, Keeran says. They soon added Calgary, Alberta, to the project, and now it's in nine cities – four in Canada and five in the US.

Volunteers from local churches do the interviews. Donors choose the individual and gift they wish to make and deliver it to the shelter. The gifts are distributed on Christmas and Boxing Day (Dec. 26).

"The message we repeatedly get from the men and women is, 'I feel human again. I feel like I'm not invisible,' " Keeran adds.

At the US Vets shelter in Las Vegas, Army veteran Dave T. is "trying to get his life back on track." He has a job at Goodwill, but is seeking a better one so he can afford an apartment. His Christmas list includes a phone card, boxer shorts, a jacket, and dress shoes.

"I don't have family here," he says by phone from the shelter. "The gifts and wishes make us feel proud that they want to help us out."

For interviewer Stephanie Sullivan, "it has been incredible to get to know these men and women who have served their country and now find themselves homeless."

In Calgary, people have embraced the project, donating thousands of gifts over the past three years. Some 800 individuals were interviewed this season. "A lot of people in the shelters are working poor. They have full-time jobs, and sometimes decent ones, but the cost of living here is so high they can't afford it," says Brandi Mooney, secretary at Calgary Church of Christ, who is the local project coordinator.

The Keerans have an ambitious goal: to expand their Web-based project to every city where there are homeless people.

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