It’s here, the holiday season when service agencies are at their busiest trying to help those in need, and the needs of those who are inclined to give donations and time at this time of year.
Last year, I asked churches and community organizations to let me know what kinds of programs they have for giving in the community and we would make a master list. Mostly, the intent behind the list was one of coordination. We have church groups and non-profits doing the same thing, but they don’t always know about each other. There are programs that serve anyone coming through the door. There are others that serve their already-established client base.
Both deserve to receive the benefit of the community’s largesse, but those of us who come across families in need of food or gifts for the holidays want to refer them to the appropriate agency that can serve them so the family doesn’t have to waste its time and energy with agencies that can’t meet their needs.
The list will include those groups that serve the Morgan Hill/San Martin/Gilroy communities directly. If you are a group that raises money to provide supplies for an agency to give, then, for my purposes, that is an intermediary kind of service. It’s valuable and we are grateful. The organization you’ve chosen to support will be the listed agency that serves the community. So, if you will, I’d still love to know about your group and who you’re supporting and we’ll get them on the list.
I’m asking for the information again. If you can, go to the Dispatch archives, search on my name and read my Nov. 4, 2005 column. Or, contact me via the e-mail address listed below.
The spate of people being hit by cars in crosswalks is a deplorable situation, and while the incidents have happened in Gilroy, the rest of South County is not immune. When I mentioned the drop off arrangements at a Morgan Hill school at the beginning of the school year, I received lots of comments in commiseration.
The commute to school is one of the most frustrating, because of hurried parents on their way to work or other destinations. For the drivers, it’s all about them and it’s a level of selfishness that is dangerous to the community. They run stop signs, pass to the right of vehicles stopped to let others cross the street (the mom in the mini-van and the guy in the truck honking and cursing at the yielding vehicle on Miller Avenue while nearly hitting a young child they couldn’t see know who you are), stop in red zones to drop off their kids and cut the visibility for others to a dangerous level. They commit other driving transgressions.
The four-way stops are the worst. There’s always someone who goes out of turn, following immediately behind the car in front rather than waiting for the folks in the other directions. What to do at four-way stops is not etiquette, folks. They are rules of the road that have been developed over a century to ensure the survival of everyone who uses the roads – drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.
Fellow columnist Ben Anderson mentioned that these are not accidents. I also have a hard time understanding how, if everyone involved did everything right, as a policeman said, a multi-ton vehicle plow into a 5-year-old boy (or 72-year-old man) in a crosswalk?
Last comment from me on the “cheerleaders go to Hawaii” decision. I said I’d ask my brother in Iraq and his peers if they thought that the news that the cheerleaders from their school would be at the Pro-Bowl would raise their spirits, as David McCrae claimed it would. None of them, my brother answered, were inspired by or cared about the “alma mater’s cheerleaders on the national stage.”
However, they all noted the subject of fairness, he said. All of them have experienced punishment of the group for the failings of one in their unit, and they all hate that. And, they said, if the concern is that students meeting prescribed requirements are still not succeeding out of high school, that’s grade inflation, an adult-caused, not student-caused problem that needs to be corrected.
The fact that the policy was set last year is problematic. Who’s not communicating and making sure everyone understands the requirements?
Columnist Dina Campeau is a wife, mother of two teens and a resident of Morgan Hill. Her work for the last seven years has focused on affordable housing and homeless issues in Santa Clara County. Her column will be published each Friday. Reach her at
