Brenda Thorn is a little worried about the holidays.

As the manager of Langley’s Good Cheer food bank and thrift store, she said her agency is feeding more families this fall than it has at almost any other time in recent years. This would not be a concern in a normal year, but 2001 has been anything but normal. The events of Sept. 11 got many locals donating money, clothes, and other items to the disaster relief, Thorn said, which could leave Good Cheer short as the holiday season begins a few weeks from now.

Donations are still steady, though not quite as high as last year, and the food shelves are still full. But Thorn said Good Cheer is spending more money and buying more food than usual. In October, 238 food baskets went out to needy families, compared to 152 for the same period last year.

She is confident she and her staff can meet every family’s needs, but only if South Whidbey people continue their pattern of donating heavily and often during the holidays.

“There has been so much of a surge for the people back East, I hope they remember locally,” she said.

2001 has been a big year for charitable causes on the island, especially on South Whidbey. Donors gave more than $700,000 toward purchasing a new park in the Sartoga Woods, tens of thousands of dollars to buy wetlands in Freeland, and more than $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims and victims’ families in the World Trade Center and Pentagon disasters.

So far, that spirit of giving has not seemed to flag locally. Two benefit pancake breakfasts held on South Whidbey at the same time Sunday both made money. At one put on by the South Whidbey Fire and Emergency Association to raise money for leukemia patient Ryan Furman, about 500 donors paid out a total of $3,500.

People were so generous, said association member Teri Campbell, that some didn’t even eat breakfast. They just gave at the door, while others handed money to fire volunteers directing traffic from Highway 525 to the breakfast site at South Whidbey High School.

“The people of this community are incredible,” Campbell said.

Down the road at a benefit breakfast for Good Cheer, volunteer Don Carlson said his group’s pancakes raised $1,000 in spite of the competition.

It may be that Whidbey Islanders can’t say no to a good cause. At the fire volunteers’ breakfast, Mike and Julie Joslyn said they felt compelled to help, especially when their money is going to a specific person in the community. Mike said giving is a year-round responsibility for the two of them.

“Giving back is such an easy thing to do,” he said.

The biggest single, short-term rush of donations this year probably went the Island County chapter of the American Red Cross. Jean Hermanson, executive director of the chapter, said the money her agency received from Island County residents in September and October alone totalled half her typical annual budget. While the rush of giving for disaster relief on the East Coast was admirable, Hermanson said she hopes the regular gifts Red Cross supporters turn in at this time of year do not slack off. None of the money raised for the agency’s “Liberty Fund” — which benefits victims of the Sept. 11 disaster — during the past two months will be used locally. Other funds are needed for that.

“This is the key time of the year,” she said. “We’re encouraging people to think locally.”

The same goes for Jean Wieman at the North Whidbey Help House. The Oak Harbor food shelf has seen the same growth in demand from needy families in its area during the past month. Wieman, the agency’s deputy director, said the Help House is getting enough food now from area grocery stores and other donors, but is wary with the holidays on the way.

“I think we’ll be okay,” she said.

People in the Oak Harbor and Coupeville areas have always been generous, she said.

“All we have to do is say we’re low on something and we’re not low anymore.”