COUNTYWIDE : Group Brings In Holiday Cheer to People Who Can’t Go Out

Eyebrows were raised in Brendan Appel’s family when he announced he wouldn’t be joining them for the traditional family get-together on Christmas Day. But after Appel explained that he would spend the day giving the gift of friendship to those who are confined without others to visit them, his relatives relented.

Now Appel, 44, has persuaded family members to join him. “We had to do some quick reshuffling,” Appel said. “Now our family will come together to celebrate on another day.”

Appel, a Ventura resident, is a volunteer for the newly formed Ventura committee of The Holiday Project--a nonprofit group of volunteers who visit people confined to hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions during Christmas, Hanukkah and other holidays.

The San Francisco-based national organization, in operation for 20 years, has had a Santa Barbara chapter for over a decade. Attempts four years ago to establish a Ventura committee died from lack of support, but efforts in recent weeks to resurrect it are picking up steam, Appel said.

About 33,000 volunteers will visit more than 220,000 people nationwide this year, said Donna Solan, a volunteer in the Santa Barbara chapter. Combined, Santa Barbara and Ventura hope to dispatch about 560 volunteers--about 150 from Ventura County--who will visit about 2,800 people, Solan said.

“The act of sharing yourself with someone is the greatest gift a person can give,” said Nancy Hug, chairwoman of the Ventura committee. “To see someone with a grouchy, skeptical demeanor light up when you visit them gives you a deeper realization of what family and friends mean.”

Volunteers should call Hug at 985-0652 or Appel at 388-3812. They will meet on Christmas Day at the Ventura County Church of Religious Science at 1 p.m. There they will break up into teams for visits to hospitals, nursing homes and convalescent centers.

As Annie Meldrum, a 103-year-old resident of Mission Terrace Nursing Home in Santa Barbara, succinctly put it: “It’s very nice” to have someone visit during the holidays. Her only request: “Please smile when you come.”