Roused by pounding at the door early one Sunday last June, Teah Smith hurried in the pre-dawn darkness to a crime scene in Garfield.

Through the cluster of officers and paramedics, she spotted a familiar pair of sneakers on motionless feet, and she knew what she'd heard was true: Anthony Charles Smith Jr. was dead.

It was Father's Day. The victim would have been 22 within days. Four weeks later, Teah gave birth to their son, Anthony Charles Smith III.

Last Wednesday afternoon, the 4-month-old boy slept peacefully in a car seat at Teah's feet while she relived this devastation with other widows gathered around a Tree of Hope conference table. Adrienne Young hurried to grab paper towels for the weeping women.

They are a sisterhood of grief. Teah's partner died on Father's Day. Angela Barlow's husband Sidney was murdered trying to settle a dispute at the 1999 Turkey Bowl football game in Garfield. Adrienne Young buried her son Javon, a Carnegie Mellon art student, on Christmas Eve, 1994. Theirs are the faces behind the headlines. When the microphones and tape recorders disappear and the public forgets, these women have to reassemble violence-shattered lives -- a task made harder at Christmas by an unfortunate twist of charity.

Admirable, effective programs exist to give holiday help to the children made vulnerable when their parents go to prison. The best-known of these is the "Angel Tree" of Prison Fellowship Ministries, founded by Watergate felon Charles Colson, through which people in many local churches buy gifts anonymously for prisoners' children.

But when Adrienne Young called a few years ago to see about getting presents for the children she helps, she was asked to supply Department of Correction numbers.

"No -- these are the children of the victims," Adrienne explained at the time. "I'm sorry" was the response.

"The boy who killed my son can get toys for his kids," she said last week, "but we can't! From that moment I said, 'We're going to have our own tree.' "

Adrienne had founded her Tree of Hope ministry within a year of her son's death. She added the Christmas tree aspect just five years ago and somehow found enough for 90 children drawn just from her organization's support groups.

This year, tragically, 428 children are on the gift list. But their Christmas party -- Dec. 17 at Eastminster Presbyterian Church -- will feature far more than presents. There will be grocery and diaper money. Young will give awards to kids who made honor roll and to grandmothers selflessly raising another generation.

She'll scrounge up scholarships for widows going back to school -- like Angela Barlow, who's now a college senior studying criminal justice and hoping to attend law school.

Just four days before Sidney was slain, he and Angela sat down to sketch out the next 10 years. "He said, 'If something happens to me, don't you dare give up.' "

These women aren't giving up, but to some extent we're failing them. Foundation grants and faith-based giving flow to programs for perpetrators in the hope that we can break the cycle of violence.

We may, but isn't the first requirement of charity to aid the widows and fatherless? Why are we looking away?

To donate toys or money, contact Tree of Hope, 13 Pride St., Pittsburgh 15219, at 412-434-0404 or go to www.treeofhope.com.