The offers began to pour in shortly after Natasha Sydney’s story was published as part of the 100th campaign of The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

Ms. Sydney, a struggling mother of three daughters, had little money to furnish her apartment in Brooklyn. Offers of furniture came from readers and the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit, Sephora Rosario of Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens said. An interior designer gave Ms. Sydney a dining table, chairs, two end tables and lamps. The family’s puppy, Mister Man, even got a leopard print bed.

That generosity was repeated again and again for those whose financial hardship, medical calamities and loss of shelter were featured in the 2011-12 campaign. The profiles began on Nov. 6 with the story of Elfreda McMillan and her son, Thonn, a teenager whose 85-pound body has been ravaged by a rare disease, and ended on Feb. 10 with an article about Isabella Rivera, an 86-year-old widow who survived the death of a son, a fire and a stabbing by a naked attacker.

Donors responded in greater numbers than in the past three campaigns, reversing a trend of falling totals and helping the fund top $7 million for the first time in five years.