Getting help in Polk County
The county offices and the organizations in Polk County that feed people, house them, defend them and take in their animals. Listed for anyone who needs help and for anyone with time or money to give.
For domestic violence or sexual assault, SAAFE House runs a free and confidential hotline around the clock on 1-833-858-6265. Everything else on this page has office hours.
Holiday help 2026
Christmas gifts and Thanksgiving meals for Polk County families who need a hand this year, plus ways to give. Most programs fill up or close sign-ups before December, so check the dates now.
Gifts for kids
Christmas of Hope – Center of Hope
Toys for Tots (Marine Corps Reserve)
Holiday meals
Thanksgiving Day meals for shut-ins – MannaFest
Pantry closed days – MannaFest
Want to give?
Toys and cash for Christmas of Hope
Deliver Thanksgiving meals – MannaFest
Still checking: the area's toy runs and the Sheriff's Office holiday meals and gift giveaways (936-327-6810). We'll add each one when the organizer confirms 2026 dates. Know of one that's missing? Send it in.
Sources: Center of Hope: Polk County Enterprise, Nov. 19, 2025, and centerofhopepolk.org. MannaFest: mannafestlivingstontexas.org (Thanksgiving and holiday-calendar pages). Read Oct. 13, 2026. Toys for Tots: the Conroe campaign's site (conroe-tx.toysfortots.org), which lists Polk County in its service area and posts the 2026 dates; read Oct. 23, 2026. The Salvation Army's Polk County unit told PolkTX by phone on Oct. 16, 2026 that it does not run an Angel Tree here.
State benefits: SNAP, Medicaid, TANF and WIC
A food pantry is a stopgap. These are the programs underneath it, they are the same programs everywhere in Texas, and one application covers most of them.
SNAP, TANF cash help, Medicaid and CHIP are all applied for at YourTexasBenefits.com, the state's own site. You can make an account, start the application, save it and come back to it, which matters when you are filling it in on a phone. WIC is applied for separately.
Helps cover visits to doctors, dentists and hospitals, and medicines they order. CHIP covers children in families that earn too much for Medicaid.
Helps families with children age 18 and younger pay for basic needs — parents with their children, or relatives caring for related children.
Helps pregnant and breastfeeding women, and families with children younger than 5, buy healthy foods. Applied for separately from the others.
Helps people with daily living needs, caregivers, and people with mental health, drug or alcohol issues. The two agencies below are the ones the state designates for Polk County.
Short-term food benefits for people recovering from a disaster. It opens only when the state opens it for a named disaster, so there is nothing to apply for between times.
The address, the landmark, the number and the hours all come from the office's own Google listing, read September 12, 2026. PolkTX held the address back on the day this section went up, because the only sources for it then were third-party directory sites that did not agree with each other on which street it was; the listing settles it, and it is a better source than they are. It is still not the state, so it is labelled as what it is.
Call before you drive. HHSC asks people to, offices close for weather, and most of what you would go in for can be done at YourTexasBenefits.com without the trip.
Burke
The crisis line answers around the clock. Burke's administration is in Lufkin and it serves eleven East Texas counties; Polk is one of them. Its Livingston outpatient clinic is at 1100 Ogletree Drive, 936-327-3786 (per Burke's own locations page).
Area Agency on Aging of Deep East Texas
A certified benefits counselor "answers questions regarding the application process for programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Supplemental Insurance over the phone, through home visits, and presentations and enrollment events in the community." It is free, and it is the closest thing in the region to somebody who will sit with you and fill the forms in.
County offices
Not charities. These are Polk County's own offices, in the annex at 602 E Church Street, and they are worth trying before or alongside anything below — a pantry runs on donations and a county office runs on a budget somebody voted for. What none of them publish is a plain list of what they can and cannot do, so the number is the answer: ring and ask.
Polk County Social Services
The county's page gives the office and how to reach it and does not say which programs it runs or who qualifies, so PolkTX is not going to guess. If you have been turned away somewhere else, this is the county's own number — ask them what they can help with. Email Social.Services@co.polk.tx.us.
Polk County Aging Services
Meals on Wheels is not applied for here — the county's page sends you to Texas Health and Human Services on 877-317-2121. Email aging@co.polk.tx.us.
Polk County Veterans Service Office
The county's page still carries a Covid-era notice saying in-person visits are by appointment only, so ring before you drive. It says the program is supported by a Texas Veterans Commission grant from the Fund for Veterans' Assistance.
Food and emergency help
Groceries, meals, clothing and help with a bill that cannot wait.
Center of Hope – Polk County
MannaFest Food Pantry
Our Father's House
My Brother's Keeper Food Pantry – Onalaska First Baptist Church
Valid ID required. Families may come twice a month. Everyone is welcome.
Corrigan Christian Resource Center
Listed through the Southeast Texas Food Bank's Polk County agency directory.
The Salvation Army – Polk County Service Unit
The Salvation Army's own location page lists this number and no street address or hours for the Polk County unit, so call before you go.
Wednesday Fellowship Dinner – First Methodist Church
Housing and household needs
A roof, a repair, or a bed.
Habitat for Humanity of Polk County
The ReStore is at 4951 US Highway 190 W — confirmed 2026-09-26, and not the Beatty Avenue address Habitat's own website still shows. Store hours Tuesday to Friday 9am-4pm and Saturday 9am-2pm; donations taken Tuesday to Friday 9am-3pm and Saturday 9am-1pm.
Sleep in Heavenly Peace – Polk County
Extension 5788 for the Polk County chapter.
Helping Hands – First Methodist Church Livingston
Bring a copy of the bill and your driver's license. They do not help with rent or deposits.
Children and families
CASA of the Pines
Serves Polk County among others. Volunteers are always the ask.
Childrenz Haven
Free Clothing for Children of East Texas
Opening hours are not published — call or message before going. Looking for volunteers to sort donated clothing.
GRACE Pregnancy Outreach
Classes and recovery
Weekly groups that local churches run for anyone in the community, not just their members. The recovery groups are faith-based support from volunteers, not medical treatment.
SEED English classes (ESL) – Central Baptist Church
Celebrate Recovery – First Baptist Church Livingston
L3 Recovery – Life Vine Church
SAMHSA's National Helpline is free, confidential and open 24 hours a day, every day of the year. It refers callers to local treatment programs, support groups and community organizations, in English and Spanish.
Crisis and victim services
Free and confidential.
SAAFE House
Animal welfare
SPCA of Polk County
Not the county's animal control, which is a division of the Sheriff's Office.
Seniors and disabilities
Escapees CARE
Little Hearts, Big Dreams
New in fall 2026, and the way in is a Facebook message. There is no office or phone yet and the website is under construction. They meet people at local businesses as needed. Longer term they plan job training and placement help.
Veterans
Wheelchairs for Warriors
Community and environment
Friends of Lake Livingston
Its site did not answer when PolkTX checked; the address is published as given.
Livingston Education Foundation
A 501(c)(3) that pays for what a school budget will not. By its own account it awarded more than $31,000 in grants in a recent semester across the district's eight campuses. It publishes no office of its own: the number reaches Livingston ISD's administration office, which is also where its email address sits. Donations go through its own page.
Onalaska Education Foundation
Its stated purpose, in its own words, is to “champion excellence in education” by bringing local businesses, volunteers and the community together behind students and educators. It publishes no website; the Facebook page is the route, with an Instagram account under the same name. PolkTX has not confirmed whether it holds 501(c)(3) status — ask before you give, if that matters to you.
Polk County Cares
Polk County Recycling & Beautification
The Lake Life Foundation
Almost every organization here runs on volunteers. CASA needs advocates, Habitat needs hands and the ReStore needs stock, Sleep in Heavenly Peace needs build days, the SPCA needs fosters. The links go to them, not to us — PolkTX takes no donations, no commission and no advertising from anyone on this page.
Lions, Rotary, VFW Post 8568, American Legion Post 312, the Masonic lodge, Knights of Columbus and other clubs are listed, with meeting times and contacts, on the Clubs & Service Organizations page.
A charity directory goes stale faster than almost anything else — a moved office, a changed number, a program that ran out of funding. If you spot one, tell us and we will check it against the organization and fix it.
About this page
PolkTX has no connection to any organization listed. Nobody paid for a listing, nobody was vetted by us, and inclusion is not an endorsement — this is a directory, not a recommendation. We take no donations and no commission. For an emergency, call 911.
Sources · 15
COMPILED 2026-09-08 from details supplied to PolkTX, not read off each organization's page one by one. What was checked: every website listed here was requested again on the compile date, and eighteen of the nineteen answered — the exception is friendsoflakelivingston.org, which reset the connection, so that entry is published without a phone or address and says so. NOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED: the addresses, phone numbers, hours and the description of what each organization provides. Charities move, change their hours, run out of funding for a program and occasionally close, and a directory like this goes stale faster than almost anything else on this site. CALL BEFORE YOU DRIVE, and tell us if something here is wrong. THE STATE BENEFITS SECTION IS SOURCED DIFFERENTLY from the rest of this page - every program name, description, phone number and link in it was read on 2026-09-11 off the state's own sites, and the two agencies serving Polk County are named in the HHS services directory. The Livingston benefits office block - address, landmark, phone and hours - is sourced ENTIRELY to that office's own Google Business listing, read 2026-09-12, and the page says so. It is not a state source and is not presented as one; it is published because the third-party directory sites that also carry this address disagree with each other on the street, and the listing is better than they are. One of those directories gives a different number, 936-327-6713, which PolkTX has never published and is recording here so nobody re-opens the question without new evidence. THE COUNTY OFFICES SECTION was read on 2026-09-14 off Polk County's own department pages and nowhere else. Every name, address, phone, fax and email in it is quoted from those pages. What those pages do NOT contain is any statement of what the Social Services office actually provides or who is eligible - it lists the director and the contact details and stops - so PolkTX describes it as the county's social services office and no more. Two of the three, Social Services and Veteran Services, publish the SAME phone number, 936-327-6838, with different faxes; that is reproduced as published and the page tells the reader to say which office they want. The Covid-era appointment-only notice on the Veteran Services page is flagged as such because it is undated on that page and may no longer hold. SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS moved 2026-10-11 to /clubs/, where each was verified from its own page or national directory. NO ORGANIZATION HERE HAS PAID FOR OR APPROVED ITS LISTING. PolkTX takes no donations, no commission and no advertising on this page, and inclusion is not an endorsement or a vetting — it is a directory. Nothing here is a substitute for 911.
- Southeast Texas Food Bank, Polk County agenciesread 9/8/26
- SAAFE Houseread 9/8/26
- Center of Hope – Polk Countyread 9/8/26
- SPCA of Polk Countyread 9/8/26
- Livingston Education Foundationread 9/9/26
- Livingston ISD, administration contactread 9/9/26
- Your Texas Benefits, programs and applyread 9/11/26
- Texas HHS, SNAP food benefitsread 9/11/26
- Texas HHS, Lone Star Card contactsread 9/11/26
- Texas HHS services directory, Polk Countyread 9/11/26
- Burkeread 9/11/26
- DETCOG, Area Agency on Agingread 9/11/26
- Polk County, Social Servicesread 9/14/26
- Polk County, Agingread 9/14/26
- Polk County, Veteran Servicesread 9/14/26