For many Tristate charities, the holiday season is when they traditionally fill coffers and stock pantries with enough donations to meet year-round needs.

        This year, however, the double whammy of a sluggish economy and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have many nonprofit groups struggling to help more people with much less.

        “I don't begrudge anyone sending money to New York,” said Bob Tubesing, executive director of Erlanger-Elsmere United Ministries. “The point is, we need it here, too.”

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        • Each holiday season, AT&T normally provides Echo Soup Kitchen at the Henry Hosea House in Newport with 150 to 175 stockings filled with personal-care items for low-income seniors and families from Campbell, Kenton and Hamilton coun ties. However, because of economic cutbacks this year, AT&T employees won't be filling stockings for the soup kitchen's clients this Christmas, said Karen Yates, the soup kitchen's executive director.

        • In September, the annual Harvest Moon band festival in Newport was to benefit the FreeStore/FoodBank in Over-the-Rhine, as it had the two previous years, said Jan Seidel, development director for the Over-the-Rhine nonprofit hunger relief agency that serves nearly 112,000 a year in 22 Ohio, Indiana and Northern Kentucky counties. But after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 that money was instead earmarked for 9-11 relief efforts. The group has pledged to organize another benefit for the FreeStore/FoodBank.

        • At Northern Kentucky's largest social service agency — the Brighton Center in Newport — overall giving is down about 73 percent, or $18,000 less than October of last year, said Development Director Peggy A'Hern. Food pantry donations, which traditionally help carry the agency through the winter, are down about 50 percent. Meanwhile, demand for Christmastime assistance is up about 10 percent.

        And of the eight companies that signed up to provide personal-care items to clients this Christmas, four canceled their local projects after Sept. 11, opting to collect for national needs instead, Ms. A'Hern said.

        “The tragedies in New York and Washington were horrible, but they didn't diminish any local needs,” said Bob Rankin, director of client services for the FreeStore/FoodBank. “We're seeing a lot of new families this year. The jobs that people are getting when they get off welfare are certainly not living wages.”

        For the first time, St. John's Social Services, a nonprofit agency that helps low-income residents from the inner city and Hamilton County, will enclose an appeal for funds in its annual newsletter going out this week.

        “For the month of November, which is usually pretty busy, we have seen about a 25 percent drop-off in donations of food and clothing and household products,” said Marylyn Middendorf, executive director. Cash donations also are down — from just over $21,000 last November to $16,000 this month.

        “Unfortunately, we're seeing some new folks come in for assistance,” Ms. Middendorf said. “We had a cab driver in Cincinnati who'd never been in before, but she stopped in because her business had dropped off.”

        Not all agencies are suffering, however.

        “From the comments I hear, I think overall we're doing OK,” said Kim Frances, assistant director of Be Concerned, a Covington nonprofit agency that provides food and clothing to low-income families in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties.

        “As far as the Christmas gifts for moms and children, I don't see any big difference there,” said Joyce McNeely, development director for the Women's Crisis Center Inc., which serves Boone, Kenton, Campbell, Grant, Gallatin, Pendleton, Owen and Carroll counties, as well as Maysville in Mason County.

        Others say it's too soon to tell.

        “The giving is about the same as last year, maybe a little lower,” said Matt Pearce, public relations director for the Greater Cincinnati Salvation Army. “We should have a better idea” in early December.

        Mr. Tubesing of Erlanger-Elsmere United Ministries said that his organization, which serves low-income families in southern Kenton and Boone counties, had 135 people sign up for food baskets this Thanksgiving, a 65 percent increase over last year.

        “We've seen a number of people who've been laid off from the hospitality industry,” he said.

        Emergency assistance money that normally stretches until the end of November ran out on Nov. 15 this year, Mr. Tubesing said.

        Erlanger-Elsmere United Ministries' executive director recently wrote some of the agency's largest donors, appealing for funds. The Northern Kentucky Brotherhood also raised just more than $3,000 at an Oct. 6 benefit concert. And an anonymous donor agreed to give $1,000 for Thanksgiving and Christmas, on the condition that the agency secured matching funds, he said.

        While those efforts are heartening, much more is needed with the increase in clientele, Mr. Tubes ing said. In the six months before October, the United Ministries saw an average of 223 families a month.

        That average jumped to 293 in October, and for November, the agency already has seen more than 300 families.

        “None of us begrudge the wonderful generosity that has been extended to help the people in New York in their time of need,” Mr. Tubesing said. “But our "ground zero' is here and now.”

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