As the day known for giving approaches one local restaurant
gears up for its annual Christmas Day dinner and gift fest.
As the day known for giving approaches one local restaurant gears up for its annual Christmas Day dinner and gift fest.
Betsy’s Restaurant, owned by Jesse and Betsy Nazzal and their children, is making plans to serve 500 to 600 people from 11am-3pm on Dec. 25, and hand out gifts to children, but they could use more toys, books and stuffed animals.
In 2003 the community donated more than 400 gifts to be placed under the Christmas tree at the restaurant.
On Christmas Eve, Betsy’s cooks prepare 65 boneless turkeys to serve 500 to 600 meals free to all needy and/or lonely folks the next day. Dinner includes roast turkey, mashed potatoes, vegetables, bread and pies donated by Marie Callender’s Restaurant and Bakeries. Residents who want to help feed the anticipated crowd are welcome to stop by.
Betsy’s Restaurant is located in Tennant Station, near the Cinelux Theatres but facing Vineyard Avenue. Call 779-3721 or drop off a toy, wrapped with age of child noted.
Morgan Hill Rotary shared its well-know wealth of cheer with about 80 kids at El Toro Youth Center on Dec. 9, bringing Santa by riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Besides receiving gifts from the jolly old elf, the kids gobbled up dinner prepared by ETYC parents.
Rotary President John Tarvin said about 40 Rotarians – and their spouses – were led in holiday singing by the youngsters who also had decorated the center with seasonal colors.
“A good time was had by all,” Tarvin said, not coining a phrase.
Community Solutions also is jumping into the holiday giving fray, as it does each year.
Nearly 250 families will have better holidays this year thanks to the generosity of local businesses, individual donors and volunteers who took part in Community Solutions’ holiday giving programs: Adopt-a-Family and Giving Tree.
Local support this year has been intense, allowing the program to serve 66 more families than in 2003. All are families served by Community Solutions’ and who live in Morgan Hill, San Martin, Gilroy and Hollister.
Donors to the Adopt-a-Family program provide an entire family with gifts, food for the holidays and a grocery card. The Giving Tree provides a way for donors to give gifts or food or grocery cards to the program.
Volunteers then match family needs with donations. These programs would not be possible without the generosity of local businesses and countless hours of volunteer time necessary to organize months in advance and then shop, sort and wrap in the large facility donated by the Simonsen family.
Hospira (formerly Abbott Labs) employees topped the list by adopting 30 families. Oakwood Country School, Community Lending, Anritsu, Comcast and many individual donors also adopted families. Alien Technologies, City of Morgan Hill, Diversified Software, Kiwanis, Coldwell Banker and South Valley National Bank all donated gifts and food items to the Giving Tree program.
Seventh and eighth grade students at Martin Murphy Middle School continued the school’s tradition of helping families in need during the holiday season. Like the rest of the Morgan Hill School District, Martin Murphy participates in a canned food drive to create food baskets for families in the community.
This year, students collected 5,000 cans; a great total, Principal Rhoda Wolfskehl said.
The district teams up with the Morgan Hill Kiwanis Club to collect the food, create the baskets, identify the families and distribute the baskets. Last year, approximately 1,000 families received baskets.
Martin Murphy teachers and students decided to put a little fun into the drive last year, with a competition between classes to bring in the most food items. Students brought in more than all the other schools in he district combined.
This year, as the school has lost a grade level – ninth graders moved from Murphy and Britton Middle School to the high schools this year – students and teachers are scrambling to meet last year’s “personal best.”
The Paradise Valley Elementary School community has also found a way to super-size the giving: for at least six years, students and their families have been making the season a little brighter for needy families in their school.
The school’s administration identifies families each year, based on the free and reduced lunch program, and gives coordinator Gretchen Ankiel information on each, such as the ages of the children and how many, plus the adults that make up the household. Ankiel then assigns a family to a classroom, dividing them up if necessary to even out the number of family members per classroom.
Students and their families then purchase gifts for the families and food, and Paradise Valley Student Council members sort the items and pack up the baskets for the families.
“This year, we had 55 children in all, and we had 250 gifts,” Ankiel said Thursday. “We had more than $600 in gift cards and cash … This is a real feel-good project, for me, for the students and for their families. We’re hoping this will give the children a sense of what the season is all about. Maybe they’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, it’s not just about me.’”
