Local non-profits and area churches are already knee-deep in
preparing for one of the busiest times of need of the year for
them: the holiday season.
Local non-profits and area churches are already knee-deep in preparing for one of the busiest times of need of the year for them: the holiday season. Beginning with outfitting children with costumes so they can experience the joy of Halloween, to providing needy families with a basket full of fixings for a traditional meal so they, too, can celebrate the bounty of Thanksgiving, to helping poor families experience Christmas and survive the high costs of heating for the winter, they are working overtime and non-stop to recruit and coordinate volunteers, identify families in need, solicit donations and coordinate donations and services.
Whew! Though they do this kind of work year round, the part that increases for them is the recruitment of volunteers and soliciting and coordinating donations, because this is the time of year when residents who have resources to share reflect on their own blessings and resolve to help. With the need growing greater than the resources, the South County Collaborative, a coalition of non-profit and public human service organizations that work to meet South County’s neediest families, wants to do something different this year.
We want to produce a “master list” of every organization – churches, too – that are providing goods and services to poor people this year. Are you running an adopt-a-family program? Are you providing food baskets? Gifts? Do you take requests for help from families from your own congregation or client base only? Or will you accept walk-ins or referrals from other agencies that don’t provide such service? In the past, non-profits haven’t known what is offered by churches, and vice versa. This information will be extraordinarily helpful for a variety of reasons: first, we’ll know where to send people needing assistance so we can meet all of the need. Second, Morgan Hill Times and other South Valley Newspaper readers will have specifics on who needs what and where your donations will have a lot of impact during this Season of Giving.
If your organization is providing food baskets, dinners to families/others in need, or other direct support, please email me the following information by Nov. 10 to dc******@*****er.net:
n Who is your target population (e.g. homeless people, low-income families, foster youth, etc?)
n What you give (food baskets, hot meals, adopt-a-family for Christmas)
n Deadline for people to sign up with you (e.g. most organizations need to plan the meet the needs of families).
n Do you serve only your current clients or church members? Or can other groups refer people to you?
n What (items) do you need to meet your demand? List them all please. (gift cards, frozen turkeys, unwrapped toys, etc.)
n Deadline for people to donate needed items to you. (Any special instructions on how they should give? Hours, days, specific sites?)
After we compile the list, local newspapers will publish the list as a “giving guide” that can be used all season.
Our local human service organizations are extremely grateful for the community’s assistance in helping them help others. Because they don’t want to risk alienating donors by making it inconvenient for them to give, they usually bend over backwards to take donations. For example, organizations usually have deadlines to receive donations so that they can be distributed to families in time for Christmas. However, donors still bring items on Christmas Eve and even Christmas Day, so a staff person gives up holiday time with his own family to man the building just in case.
While I appreciate the observance of the true meaning of the holidays by giving to others on those days, it is tough on the recipients. On behalf of the service organizations, my (unsolicited) plea to donors this year is to sign up to serve meals at the dining hall now, not on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Planning has been done to staff the kitchens.
I know from personal experience how the rhythm of the day can be interrupted to accommodate the good intentions of the family that has just walked in to help serve. Also, please purchase and donate your goods or money by the deadline of your chosen organization so that coordination, assembly and delivery can be as seamless as possible.
And, if you miss the deadline, that’s fine! Organizations will GLADLY accept your donations in January, because the need for gifts, gift cards and money, truly is year round.
With this coordinated information, we hope to maximize South County’s greatest resource – the unique generosity of our residents.
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 dc******@*****er.net.
