Today, children without a parent or parents at home or a family without a place to even call home will sit down for dinner thanks to Stacy Hartley.

If she’s on the toy aisle or near the clothing rack in the stores, it’s best to stay out of her way — it’s just in her nature to give.

“I do a little bit beyond,” Hartley said, fresh off helping coordinate a successful 17th Jammin’ For the Kids Christmas Benefit earlier this month. The event sponsored by the Warren County Jail Chaplain’s Office and Beyond Walls Ministry provides gifts to children of inmates who otherwise wouldn’t receive anything for Christmas.

“I end up providing someone with Christmas dinner, not just toys for the kids. That way, the family can have dinner.

Hartley’s energy for helping the less fortunate doesn’t stop when the last guitar riff fills the air at the annual benefit concert. It won’t be long before the full-time mother hits the stores to find toys and clothes to families who stay in contact with her year-round.

“I keep contact with some of the families through the days, the years,” she said. “I guess I end up taking some under my wing every year and stay in contact beyond the angel tree. And I have literally gone out and bought jogging suits, socks, you name it. If I see something I like, I grab it.”

“They might only need help one year, but I still have that bond with them.”

Sheriff Martin Pace agrees.

“One of the most caring people I’ve ever known,” Pace said. “The jail angel tree is no exception. She does it with the same enthusiasm she has when shopping for her own children.”

Success creates interest, and the program is expanding. Parents counted among the working poor have inquired about having gifts under the tree.

It has expanded to include children of the homeless or those “down on their luck” who have asked the sheriff’s department to be part of the toy drive, Pace said, based on its success with families of inmates.

Hartley said it’s the underemployed who’ve requested the help.

“A lot of them are working, but either they are just starting or they’re not making enough,” Hartley said, adding more than a few homeless families have been helped by people who ask her to be a conduit for charity. “They barely have the money to pay the bills. And a few of them each year have just lost jobs right before Christmas.”

“I have anonymous people who come up to me and say, ‘If you know of someone who needs Christmas dinner, let us know.’ I have done things out of my pocket, because the money we get for Jammin’ For the Kids is strictly used for kids’ Christmas.”

Hartley has even put her chef hat on for the needy during the holiday season.

“I’ve shopped for a four-course Christmas meal and took it to them,” she said. “A lot of them want to cook, but they don’t have any money for the food. I just go out and buy ham, turkey, stuff for dressing. I take it to them.”

Whatever the season, Hartley said she’s in it for the long haul with the annual holiday event for inmates’ families.

She reports $9,000 was raised this year, and it’ll be returning to Roca Restaurant for the foreseeable future.