September 9, 2004

Focus on Faith

Almaden churches collect coats, raise money and feed the
homeless during holiday season

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

Almaden Valley churches have been busy this month participating in holiday outreach activities to help the less fortunate.

Los Gatos Christian Church, with a large Almaden presence, has been working with the San Jose-based nonprofit City Team Ministries to provide warm coats for low-income kids during the winter.

The Los Gatos Christian School children are also collecting toys for City Team Ministries and the church has also donated Christmas trees to families living a nearby low-income apartment complex. The church will host a Christmas party for the families on Dec. 19.

“It’s wonderful. The whole purpose is to build relationships with people, not just giving them food and toys. We want them to feel loved and accepted,” said Dorothy Staehs, a lay church member who coordinates the efforts with City Team Ministries and other ministries within the church.

Carol Smith, director of Family Services at City Team Ministries, said the church’s drive comes at a significant time this year as the nonprofit organization was offered a matching fund from Cisco Systems for money raised to buy the coats.

“We’re looking for new coats rather than old coats,” Smith said. “The effort of people partnering with us is significant because without it we wouldn’t be able to do our part. People think of giving around the holidays but we need to remember that the poor have needs year round.”

At Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, the Rev. Robert Weller has been overseeing an annual door offering with proceeds going to the Community Outreach Ministry Endeavor (C.O.M.E.) program, which provides food and clothing for needy families in the San Jose area and is a joint effort of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Churches in the San Jose area. Immanuel Lutheran Church in downtown San Jose is in charge of the program.

The church’s women’s organization known as “Shepherd Women” has also been collecting new teenage “toys” for C.O.M.E. and sponsoring “Operation Gratitude” which sends care packages to soldiers serving in Iraq.

The women’s group has also assembled Christmas gift bags for C.O.M.E. for needy families. Each bag contains cookies, a pamphlet of the story of Christmas, an ornament and a grocery gift certificate.

The church’s preschool is also sponsoring the “Giving Tree,” with money collected to benefit C.O.M.E.

In November, the owners of Stuft Pizza in Almaden and volunteers from the Episcopal Church in Almaden (ECA) began their Thanksgiving tradition of donating and cooking more than 50 turkeys for InnVision, the largest provider in the valley of housing and services for the homeless, and its Montgomery Meals program. The turkeys were cooked in the restaurant’s ovens and provided more than 1,000 pounds of turkey for nearly 5,000 meals to feed San Jose’s homeless population.

The Montgomery Meals program is possible thanks to a coalition of many volunteer groups that feed the homeless daily at the Montgomery Street Inn and other shelters throughout San Jose.

Longtime Almaden resident Amy Griffith, ECA’s cooking team coordinator, explained many who apply for shelter are employed, but may have lost their homes and have to live in their cars. Others must choose between paying rent and paying for food. The program helps them stretch their money while keeping a roof over their heads.

Griffith praised the restaurant for its generosity, noting that their provision of ovens on the busiest turkey-baking day of the year is essential to the church’s ability to help the less fortunate.

The Almaden Valley United Church of Christ (AVUCC) is raising money for the denomination’s Christmas fund that helps clergy who have financial difficulties because they’re on small pensions or have minimal health coverage.

The ECA and the AVUCC, which worship in the same building, also joined forces Dec. 5 to collect food and gifts for the holiday season through its Alternative Christmas program, which sponsored Habitat for Humanity, the Heifer Project, Sacred Heart Community Service, the Santa Maria Urban Ministry (SMUM) and the African Team Ministry.

The ECA and AVUCC senior high youth group also had a special outreach project for the Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS) students at West Valley College collecting warm clothes and food. EOPS is funded by the state and is designed to assist low-income educationally disadvantaged students.

The youth group is also adopting a needy family for Christmas by participating in a program called “Servant Auction” which consisted of services offered by the teenagers in exchange for money. The group is also hoping to raise enough funds to pay for a mission trip to Polson, Mont., to the Glacier Gateway Work Camp to benefit the Flathead Indian Reservation, which struggles with unemployment and low incomes.

The junior high youth group is also sponsoring a family with proceeds from a bake sale last Sunday, which consisted of making and selling apple, pumpkin and pecan pies that will be delivered to the church on Dec. 19.

Katie McCormick, youth director of the ECA and AVUCC, said last year the group collected about $3,000. “We have about 40 active members in both the junior and senior high youth groups. They’re wonderful kids who are committed to making a difference in the world,” McCormick said.

In addition, both churches are participating in the Angel Tree program for SMUM clients. The churches are also trying to increase donations of gifts for SMUM children as offerings have been low this year, said Lorraine Zeller, Joint Venture Churches of Almaden administrator.

Mary Lynn Elkins, chairwoman of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church’s 133-member outreach group, said more than 100 turkeys, warm clothing and nonperishable food items have been collected for Sacred Heart Community Service.

The church also sponsored a “Giving Tree” program, which supported the Sobrato Family Living Center, a part of the Emergency Housing Consortium and the Gifford House, a battered mother’s transitional housing facility that houses ten mothers and approximately 25 children. The church also adopted 58 shelter families for Christmas and will be donating toys to St. Joseph’s Family Center in Gilroy.

“We’re a generous and loving parish,” Elkins said, who’s been leading the effort for about seven years. “We’ve been doing this for a number of years because there’s a desperate need in the community.”

Rosalie Marty, pastoral associate at Holy Spirit Catholic Church, said Holy Spirit School’s eighth graders collected baby items for the parish’s Layette Group, made up of about 30 women who knit, crochet and sew baby items.

The items were donated to public health nurses in Santa Clara County for indigent women with newborn babies.

On Dec. 6 the Catholic Diocese of San Jose (DSJ) and their Layette groups got together and had a big shower at Holy Family Catholic Church to collect all the items. The group at Holy Spirit is headed by Roberta Zoller, a retired San Jose Unified School District employee. About 16 boxes of items were taken to the shower Monday evening.

“It’s not just a holiday thing. The Layette group works year round on their different assignments and during the year they give out four Layettes per month, except in the summer, consisting of a baby blanket, booties, hats, diapers, wash cloths, to public health nurses in the county,” said Bob Zoller, who helps his wife and the other women with their humanitarian efforts. “Last night the group made their final donation to the diocese which consisted of various Layette items.”

Roberta Ward, director of media relations for the DSJ, said the Layette program is one of the most important programs that the diocese has been involved with for many years benefiting families in need in real down to Earth ways. “Some of these people are so poor that sometimes they have taken their babies home in newspaper wrappings. That’s the kind of poverty we’re trying to alleviate here,” Ward said. “We’re still hurting in the valley.

Families still are in need. The diocese is so grateful for all those who contribute items or money to these worthwhile causes, especially the Layette Program.”

Another group of parishioners at Holy Spirit Catholic Church was in charge of the Advent Angel program collecting items for the Truck of Love for needy families, especially in the Alviso area and all over San Jose. The items included toys, clothing and gift certificates.

Pete Fullerton, who runs the San Jose-based nonprofit Truck of Love program, picked up the gifts Dec. 5. The program delivers furniture, cooking utensils and other essentials for the needy and homeless. Fullerton, a former Lockheed employee and now a homeless activist, is the founder of Truck of Love, which began in 1978.

Holy Spirit School’s second graders also participated in the Advent Angel program by taking angels of the tree and fulfilling the requests written on them to benefit the needy.

“Every year it’s overwhelming,” Marty said. “Pete’s comment was that we outdo ourselves. If it wouldn’t be for Holy Spirit’s belief in its faith and commitment to those less fortunate many people would go without Christmas.”