A razor-thin line separates the generous among us from the chumps.

This is particularly clear to me during the holiday season. Not that I mind supplying fruit cups for toddlers from low-income families, or purchasing school supplies for those same children, or buying dolls, paint sets and basketballs so that no kid wakes up to a fat nothing on Christmas. But at times, it feels as though my husband and I are doing more than giving. We are supplementing.

Christmas has become the season of supplementing. Minimum-wage earners, many of whom work full time, need everything from canned goods to winter essentials to presents for the children. In response, the nation gives – we are generous, points of light and all that good stuff. But three holiday seasons ago, I began to feel like a chump.

US taxpayers are shelling out $152.8b​n each year in public support for working families

It happened one Sunday in late November, when I left church holding a paper ornament from a Christmas tree in the parish lobby. A Sunday school student had colored a snowman on one side and written a gift request on the other. By taking the ornament, I agreed to buy the gift. The church does this each year, and the gifts are generally simple – a toddler’s pajamas or a doll, etc. But this time, someone had written baby stroller on the ornament. A day later, I called the church to clarify. Was the request for a child who wanted a doll stroller or a woman who was having a baby?

Answer: It was for a woman having a baby.

Not long after, my husband and I stood under the fluorescent lights of a big-box store, weighing the options. We decided the stroller must have a rain shield and a place for a diaper bag. After all, if the mother had to ask the church for a stroller, she probably didn’t have a car.

Then we considered the price. What was our budget? We couldn’t afford the $300 high-end models with “anti-shock swiveling front wheels.” We also didn’t want to buy the bottom-of-the-line $30 stroller made of two metal sticks and a nylon sling. We ruled out blue or pink strollers, as we didn’t know the baby’s gender. We couldn’t find a khaki stroller, and so we opted for red. Even that troubled me. We knew nothing about this mother. Maybe she hated red.

After mulling over each detail, we purchased an upgraded umbrella stroller that had a rain shield and a pouch for the mother’s purse. As we put the stroller under the church Christmas tree, I couldn’t help but wonder about the young mother who would receive it. Where were her parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins? What about the giggling friends and coworkers clustered in the break room with boxes wrapped in pink and blue ribbons and, in the middle of it all, a stroller? Someone in her life must have wanted to help but couldn’t. How unimaginably frustrating, not to mention humiliating.

The church-giving program I described is meant to be anonymous, so my husband and I don’t know this woman or any of the other families we have purchased food and Christmas gifts for over the years. If we did, we would doubtless learn that many work, but still need charitable and governmental help. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, estimated in 2015 that US taxpayers were shelling out $152.8bn each year in public support for working families.

All the while, the economy has been on the mend and corporate earnings have risen, but the federal minimum wage remains $7.25 per hour, the level set in 2009. While the rate is higher in 29 states and the District of Columbia, it hovers below the $15 per hour that families need to put food on the table and pay the bills, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) living wage calculator.

This year, there were more ornaments on the giving tree in our parish lobby. The one we chose requested a gift for a girl, 10 to 12 years old. No word about whether this child is still at the Everything-Must-Be-Pink developmental stage or wishes to wear makeup. One thing is certain: if her parents made a living wage, she could have what she wanted for Christmas, as opposed to the crafts kit I grabbed off the shelf.

I enjoy giving. I enjoy Christmas. But no one likes being a chump, the little churchgoer who donates food and gifts, while the rich become richer and corporations fail to raise wages. It would be better for everyone, and for the economy, if that expectant mom we helped a few years back could stride into a big-box store and pick out her own stroller – in her favorite color, exactly what she had in mind.

• Joan Hennessy is a freelance writer based in Alexandra, Virginia