Mechanicsville resident Sue Beer and her daughters wanted to help a family in need last Christmas. So she turned to Hanover County’s Department of Social Services and, through its Holiday Match program, made the season a little brighter for a local woman who was taking care of her 9-year-old grandson. She wasn’t the only one. The match program, along with the Hanover Christmas Mother, helped 689 families, or 2,377 people, including 1,445 children.

Children have been left unattended in licensed day-care center vehicles at least 11 times in the past 2½ years in Virginia in procedural lapses similar to last week’s tragedy in Richmond, state regulators say. The Virginia Department of Social Services recorded 11 cases since January 2007 that violated the agency’s licensing code requiring day-care center staff to verify that all children have been removed from a vehicle at the end of any trip.